GenealogyandFamilyHistory.com

by Carolyn L. Barkley

Hi! My name is Carolyn and I write blogs. Since 2008, when this blog first began to appear, I have written  a weekly article. Sometimes they are written easily in the middle of sunny Sunday afternoons, a glass of wine (or two) on my
desk; sometimes my muse approaches late on Monday evening; more often she appears at 5:30 a.m. on the day the article is due. About every two months, I wrack my brain in order to create the list of topics for the upcoming eight
weeks. Needless to say, this latter task becomes more challenging as time passes. Have I written about this topic before? Will anyone be interested in the topic? Do I know anything about the topic? My friends are resigned to the
fact that I will pick their brains for topic ideas when we meet at conferences.

If I have made the writing process sound onerous, please be assured that it is not. Each week I can enjoy an opportunity to share my thoughts, my research, and always, to learn more about a specific topic. While the registration process to submit comments through this blog is imperfect, readers often contact me via my personal email to share their comments on an article. In this fashion, I have “met” several individuals who have ties to a family I’ve used as an example, and have shared their information with me. Thank you to all of you who have shared that you are regular readers.

More importantly, however, writing a weekly blog has offered me a deep appreciation for the time and effort of other genealogical bloggers, particularly those who write several posts per week. Their efforts provide rich, although informal, mentoring and life-long learning opportunities.

In March 2011, I wrote an article entitled “Blog Sites Not to Miss.” After reviewing it, I thought I would summarize some of its information, and then share with you a few additional blogs that I have discovered and now read regularly.

Your most difficult task may be to discover what genealogical blogs exist. Genealogical Blog Finder is one of the best sites offering lists of current genealogical blogs. It now tracks 1,784 blogs categorized into a long list of topics: genealogy news; personal research; localities; tips, resources and reviews; technology; specific nationalities, ethnicities or religions; genetics; podcasts; libraries; associations and societies; queries, professional genealogists, cemeteries; and many more. I recommend that you browse through some of the other categories as well. Once you identify a specific blog, you can then subscribe to its RSS feed. In the past, you have been able to suggest a blog to be added to this site, but they are no longer offering this service. GeneaBloggers also arranges genealogy blogs into categories. Its categories, however, are more specific than those on Genealogical Blog Finder, and include categories for individual states and countries, as well as such well-defined areas as genealogy vendors, recipes and tools, humor, DNA genealogy, forensic genealogy, diaries, and many more. GeneaBloggers provides access to approximately 2,500 different blogs and also offers helpful resources for bloggers.

Now that I’ve joined the ranks of webinar attendees, GeneaWebinars is proving to be a very important blog, and one I consult regularly. Many webinar opportunities exist, but I found that I was learning of them only at the last minute – or even after the fact – when someone mentioned them on Facebook. Now, by checking the GeneaWebinars blog at least once per week, I can learn about upcoming webinars, register for them, and then link them to my Outlook calendar. What a concept! When I checked this site prior to writing this description, I was able to review a list of eleven webinars between today (11 May) and 22 June. Please note: I immediately stopped writing this article long enough to register for an upcoming webinar, and will probably sign up for a couple more after I can check my calendar more closely. This site is a must if you are interested in free, convenient continuing education, accessible from the comfort of your own home.

I have recently begun to read some new (at least to me) blogs. One of these blogs is The Legal Genealogist, written by lawyer and genealogist Judy G. Russell. Her blog features daily postings and her topics are varied – sometimes personal observations or reminiscences, sometimes strictly informative. Recent topics include opinions on the continued attacks on the SSDI, and the terms of use of the Ellis Island website (a must reading for all users of that site). Judy also recently presented a webinar on copyright for genealogists, one of the best lectures I have heard in a long time. Regardless of the topic, you will always learn something new from this well-written blog.

Another blog newly added to my regular reading list is Meldon J. Wolfgang’s Mnemosyne’s Magic Mirror. Pondering over this title, I finally had to look up the reference. It turns out to be a lovely title for a genealogical blog as Mnemosyne was the Greek goddess of memory, as well as the mother of the muses. How fitting! Mel’s topics are eclectic in nature, but never fail to entertain and inform. The current topic (5 May) is “Kentucky Derby 2012: From Pedigree Charts to a Family Connection.” Other recent topics include such interesting topics as “Archives? Who Needs All That Old Stuff? A Look at Our Northern Neighbors?;” and the intriguingly titled and entertaining “Triple-Washed Veggies, Old Erie Canal Style.”

A blog that sounds more narrow in scope, but that is actually quite inclusive, is Massachusetts Meanderings and More written by “Bonnie” who lives, of all places for a blogger about Massachusetts, in Washington State. In looking at her March 20, 2012 posting (this blog has an “occasional” posting schedule) of an article about the side of her family that migrated from Canada to Washington State, I was delighted to find a link to The Barclays of Pine River, concerning the “lives of George and Amarilla Barclay,” that I will definitely find time to read soon. Another article, written in April 2011, concerns Springfield (Massachusetts) Cemetery, where several of my ancestors are buried, and a July 2011 article is a review of a book for which I did the layout and indexing, Abel Goss of Lower Waterford, by David Philip Goss (Otter Bay Books, 2011). I have enjoyed the several connections that I have found with the topics of such articles.

Two final blogs of interest, both occasional in their postings, are Craig R. Scott’s As Craig Sees It, in which he writes about a variety of topics such as recent posts on “My Favorite NARA Record Group” (RG 217, Records of the Accounting Officers of the Department of the Treasury), and “Genealogical Theories: I am Collecting Them,” and Stump Craig, a more active site at which you can post a research question and get very useful methodologies and comments (sometimes funny) to help you resolve your particular problem. This latter blog is a great opportunity to learn from an expert.

Blogs are a continual source of information about resources, families, institutions, cemeteries and more. Every time I read one, I discover something of value which either adds to my understanding of genealogy or history in general, or which applies specifically to my ancestral families and locations. Sometimes blog articles make me smile at a well-written turn of phrase or an entertaining observation or treatment of a topic. Others make me think or reexamine my understanding of a topic. Genealogical blogs are worth every minute that I spend reading them and I am inspired by them. I hope you will be too!

by Carolyn L. Barkley

At approximately 3:00 this afternoon, the lights dimmed in the exhibit hall and the “pipe and drape” guys quickly – and noisily – began to dismantle the booths. Soon everything was packed safely into boxes and we were ready to leave the exhibit hall. For me, that is the moment which seems most like the last day of camp when we were kids. I may be glad to be headed home, but I hate to part with friends in the close-knit community of fellow exhibitors, speakers, and friends.

I will not be attending FGS in Birmingham (or cruising with TMG) this year because of the timing of my late-summer trip to Scotland, so it will be another year before some of our paths cross again. As I set in my hotel room this evening, savoring my Graeter’s (a Cincinnati favorite since 1870) black cherry chip (think chunk rather than chip) ice cream, I look back on a successful and enjoyable week.

Thanks to all of you who stopped by the booth to say hello and tell me that you enjoy reading the blog…you made my day each and every time this happened.

Please stay tuned for an interim post this coming Monday, and then we will be back on the normal Friday posting schedule on the 18th.

Put NGS Family History Conference 2013 (Las Vegas) on your calendars now. I will look forward to meeting you then.

by Carolyn L. Barkley

Conferences take on a life of their own, with an ebb and flow in the exhibit hall that is driven by the session schedule. Periods of intense activity alternate with quieter hours during sessions. On Friday, individuals who had been browsing all week, began to make their final selections. Some were more cautious as they were flying home (and genealogical books are notoriously heavy); others, who were driving home, were less concerned by size and weight.

I must admit that my fondest desire is to have speakers, when preparing their lectures, contact the publishers (or at least the booksellers who normally have booths at genealogical conferences) and share with them the specific titles that they will be recommending during a lecture. No book seller wants to disappoint potential buyers with “Sorry, we don’t have that title at the conference;” or “Sorry, that book is out of print;” or “Sorry, we’ve sold the one copy we brought with us.” Granted, book sellers can sometimes anticipate popular topics based on early views of the syllabus, but that direct contact between speaker and bookseller would be very helpful.

Several people played hooky from Friday’s 9:30 session to stop at the genealogical.com booth and talk with Elizabeth Shown Mills during a book-signing. If you have not seen her new web-site Evidence-Explained.com, be sure to (and I’ll be writing more about it soon).

I spent the day looking forward to the 100th anniversary of NGSQ reception, for which I had purchased a ticket. Afterwards, I was left wondering why it was not a more festive (meaning celebratory) event. To provide full disclosure, I arrived half-an-hour late (my conference bag was heavy and therefore I took it back to my hotel room). However, a full hour of the reception’s scheduled time remained when I did arrive. Yes, there were lots of people, but they must have been very hungry, as most of the buffet items were completely depleted (often never to be replenished). While I do understand the very human behavior of large groups at buffet tables, I was surprised by the lack of a celebratory atmosphere, almost as if we had forgotten how to throw a party – or at the very least how to congratulate ourselves.  While I’m not asking for clusters of balloons and noise-makers, I was surprised by the lack of formal remarks and introductions to mark the occasion (did I miss them due to my absence during the first half-hour?). The anniversary brochure was nicely done, but the small TV-sized monitors showing pictures of editors and early title pages were lost among the crowd. In this day of dwindling print journals of this stature and longevity, NGSQ’s significant achievements deserved more. In my humble opinion…

Day two in Cincinnati at the NGS Family History Conference. Some of the best opportunities at the conference are the various twenty-minute demonstrations held in the back of the hall. I attended one such presentation on the basic features of the genealogy-specific search engine, Mocavo, and another on the Flip-Pal‘s capability of scanning large documents in separate pieces which the software included with this handy scanner then “stitches together” to create one high-quality digital image of the original. While a twenty-minute session does not provide an opportunity for a comprehensive presentation, it can provide sufficient information to support a confident attempt to put into practice what was demonstrated in the short time available.

I also attended a second lecture on the War of 1812, this time from the British army’s perspective. For anyone interested in both British and  military research, Paul Milner’s presentation was excellent.

The highlight of my day was touring the National Underground Railroad Freedom Center. I have never toured the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum in Washington, D.C., but I imagine that the impact might be similar. The museum’s mission of sharing “stories about Freedom’s heroes, from the era of the Underground Railroad to contemporary times, challenging and inspiring everyone to take courageous steps for freedom today” is well portrayed through informative exhibits housed in a spacious and well-designed building in a riverside setting. For me, one of the most moving exhibits was the 177-year-old slave pen building that was preserved by and discovered in a tobacco barn in Kentucky. Excavated and reassembled at the museum, its austere plainness is evokes its original use and time period.

My pile of additions to my home library is growing steadily higher in the corner of my hotel room and I imagine that day three will see a few more additions.

Today was the first day of the 2012 NGS Family History Conference in Cincinnati. For those of us working in the exhibit hall, the day went from 0 to 60 in the blink of an eye. One minute we weren’t open yet; the next hundreds of people were streaming through the main exhibit entrance.

As always, early visitors to the genealogical.com booth came well-prepared, book lists in hands, intent on purchasing their books early. All the book vendors, however, were crowded, calling into question the often touted death of the printed word – it definitely is not among this group! That being said, several individuals asked about the availability of titles as e-books (the majority mentioning the weight of the title in question!).

For the several days of the conference, the exhibit hall is a small and tightly-knit community offering an amazing depth of knowledge of methodologies and resources. Individuals with questions that staff in one booth may not be able to answer are referred to other booths whose staff may have the specialized knowledge to assist. Networking and informal mentoring occur throughout the day. Today I was part of conversations on as disparate topics as Scots in Jamaica (genealogical.com did have a book on the topic) and Irish immigrants who came to the United States via Trinidad in the early 1800s (which resulted in a referral to an Irish expert). A chance conversation in the lunch line may lead to a future client project and I enjoyed conversations with former library friends and colleagues, and meetings with genealogical friends whose company I enjoy, but regrettably see only a few times a year.

I was able to leave the booth long enough to attend a very informative (and enjoyable) lecture on the War of 1812 presented by Craig Roberts Scott, who offered me a significantly clearer understanding of how to determine if I might have a War of 1812 ancestor and how to proceed with research concerning this military period.

After a full day in the booth, I was happy to adjourn to Nicholson’s Gastropub, one of my favorite Cincinnati restaurants, in part because it looks almost exactly like The Mitre on the Royal Mile in Edinburgh, and in part because of the great food. My pint of Strongbow cider, mussels in white wine and garlic sauce, and sticky toffee pudding put a fine point on the day.

Tomorrow will include more lectures and exhibit hall demonstrations, so stay tuned for tomorrow evening’s conference blog installment. If you are attending the conference, please stop by the genealogical.com (Genealogical Publishing Company/Clearfield) booth and say hi.

by Jill Seaholm

Jill Seaholm, this week’s guest blogger, was born in Moline, Illinois, to extreme 100% Swedish-American parents. At 14 she was lucky enough to go on a family trip to visit distant relatives in Sweden, and, while there, became hooked on all things Swedish. At Augustana College she majored in Scandinavian Studies, studying the Swedish language and attending the Augustana Summer School in Sweden, and worked as a student assistant at the Swenson Center, indexing and doing research. Jill has worked at the Swenson Center full time and helped Swedish-Americans find their way back across the Atlantic since 1992. She wears many hats at the Swenson Center, including writer of the occasional article in the Swenson Center’s quarterly journal Swedish American Genealogist and coordinator of the journal’s weeklong genealogy workshop in Salt Lake City every autumn.

The Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, located at Augustana College in Rock Island, Illinois, is “a national archives and research institute providing resources for the study of Swedish immigration to North America, the communities the immigrants established, and the role the immigrants and their descendants have played in American life.”

It’s cool to be Swedish. We drive Volvos; we read Henning Mankell and Stieg Larsson crime books; we eat hard, dry bread; we sit on IKEA furniture; and we’re lucky enough to have access to some very good record books.

In Sweden, authorities kept track of many things about the citizens over the centuries and, while the people may not have appreciated it at the time, there is a wealth of information available to people of Swedish descent. Sometimes the trick is getting Swedes back across the ocean to learn where they came from, as you must know the name of a birth parish or residence in order to proceed in Swedish parish records.

At the Swenson Swedish Immigration Research Center, people look to us for answers, but sometimes we need more information than they possess in order to separate accurately the multitudes of immigrants with the same names. It seems as if most immigrants had the names John, Anders, Peter, Carl, Lars, Sven, Johanna, Christina, or Ingrid, etc., with surnames that look like the above, but with the addition of the suffix “–son” or –“dotter.” We use our Research Request Form as a guide both for people who hire us to do research and for people coming to the Swenson Center to experience their own research.

We ask people to start with the usual United States sources and to collect as much information as possible before contacting us for research or a visit. You should begin by asking your older relatives about the places in which the Swedes settled and whether they know if or where the immigrants went to church. If they don’t think they went to church, perhaps they know where the immigrant’s children were baptized or confirmed. That information can lead to finding the parents in church records. A baptism or marriage certificate in the family’s possession might provide the name of the officiating pastor. Obituaries and cemetery records can also lead to the name of the church where the funeral was held. At the Center, we use Swedish-American newspapers to look for obituaries, and in them we’ll occasionally find the Swedish parish of origin, year of immigration, or occasionally even parents’ names, although an obituary in an American newspaper may also yield the same data.

When researching in big cities, like Chicago and Minneapolis, where there were many Swedish churches, we may need to know specifically where the Swedes lived. That information can often be found in United States censuses and listings in city directories. We can then consult a street map to see which church was located nearest the residence.

We stress church records because one of our key research collections contains microfilmed records of churches –principally Lutheran, Covenant, Methodist, and Baptist — founded by Swedish immigrants in the United States and Canada. Swedish-American churches tended to continue their previous good recordkeeping in this country and, if Swedes joined these churches (and we hope they did even briefly), the membership records should provide dates and places. All too often immigrants used churches only for baptisms, confirmations, weddings, and funerals, without ever joining..

For the many Swedes who did not join churches, we can try fraternal lodge records. Our record collections primarily cover emigrants and groups from the mass migration period, roughly 1850-1930.

We really appreciate knowing ahead of time when Swedes were born and immigrated, particularly if they had very common names like John Johnson or Christina Peterson. The 1900 United States census shows people’s approximate month and year of birth and year of immigration. I say approximate because the information supplied to the census taker was not always accurate. It is, however, a helpful guideline, particularly the month of birth. If previously you knew only that your John Johnson was born between 1857 and 1859, the knowledge that he was born in April can help weed hundreds of people from your list of possibilities in databases.

In emigration records from Sweden, we try to match emigrants’ names to their destinations in the United States. The main Swedish port of Göteborg did not start to keep records until 1869, so that strategy will not work for everyone.

Looking for immigrants in emigration and immigration records can be challenging given the Swedish patronymic naming system and the fact that they were phasing that system out at the time of the mass migration period. Couple those issues with the Swedes’ practice of Americanizing their names after arriving in the United States, and searches become far more problematic. At the Swenson Center we are accustomed to keeping our eyes open for many possibilities. Take this extreme example – let’s say your ancestor was named John C. Swanson in the United States. Considering the patronymic system, we would expect to find him as Johan (or Johannes, Jan, Jon, John, Jaen, Jonas, etc.) C. Swensson or Svensson in Swedish records. But if that fails, we have to branch out and be ready to find him under as different a name as Karl J. Petersson. It was actually quite common for a Swede to be known by his or her middle name and either drop the real first name completely, or swap it with the middle name. Thus he may have been born Karl Johan. If his father’s name was Sven Petersson and, instead of traveling under his patronymic, Karl Johan traveled under his father’s last name, we could see him traveling as Karl J. Petersson – completely different from his American name John C. Swanson. This example illustrates another reason why it is necessary to start with more information about the immigrant than just his/her name. (Additional tips on Swedish names can be found in an article by Nils William Olsson, Ph.D, F.A.S.G.)

In addition, names and spellings were not standardized at first. You may see a name spelled a variety of ways from one record to the next. Your ancestors were not the ones filling out the record books, and record keepers had their own ways of spelling things. It pays to know the different versions of names. A list that might surprise you contains all of names that are considered the same: Karna, Karina, Kajsa/Kaisa, Katarina, and Karin – and look for them starting with C or K. (A comprehensive list of Swedish given names is available on the Nordic Names website.)

At the end of the Swedish alphabet there are three additional vowels, in this order: x, y, z, å, ä, ö. If your parish or immigrant’s surname contains an å, ä, or ö, it is important to include that special vowel or your search will likely miss your goal. In Typing Swedish Vowels I show different methods for typing the Swedish vowels.

We also ask people to look for United States marriage certificates, because some states asked for the bride and groom’s parents’ names, but because the patronymic system was not used in the United States, we have to be aware that the parents’ names can also be Americanized in United States documents, even if the parents never left Sweden. When it comes to Swedish names, we have a lot to consider!

Sometimes people already have the parish name and don’t realize it. They will say that their ancestors were from, for example, Misterhult in Kalmar County, and wonder how to find the name of the parish. Misterhult is the name of the parish. A parish consisted of the church and the geographical area for which that church’s records were kept. There were sometimes many dozens of villages and farms within a parish’s boundary, but it was most often the parish that the immigrant spoke of and which was recorded in documents.

Once the Swedish parish of origin is known, we use Swedish subscription web sites to access Swedish birth records and some census databases. People who schedule a morning with our parish record volunteer can have one-on-one assistance. One can often trace the family back as far as records were kept in each parish, sometimes to about 1700, or one can try to trace forward the siblings who stayed in Sweden and see if they perhaps have living descendants in Sweden today. Some of the subscription databases available at the Center include Genline (now part of Ancestry.com); SVAR (Swedish national archives information; database is in Swedish, so click on the “In English” button); ArkivDigital (digitized Swedish records including church records).
The Swenson Center’s hours are by appointment. We have a small reading room and a staff of two, so we absolutely need to know when people are coming. When people contact us to schedule an appointment, we go to great lengths to find out what they want to know, or what types of records they want to use, so we know whether to reserve space on a computer or microfilm reader, or time with our parish record volunteer. Over the years we have saved many people a long drive to see something only to find we did not have it.

Please see our web site for more details about our genealogical records and services, visitor information, translation services, on-site fees, our quarterly journal Swedish American Genealogist, as well as our annual genealogy research group in Salt Lake City, and search our extensive online archival and library catalogs.

Welcome to the Swenson Center!

For further information on Swedish genealogy:

• Online:

Cyndi’s List

Sweden Genealogical Gate

Swedish Center News

Swedish Roots

Tracing Your Swedish Ancestry by James E. Erickson and Nils William Olsson

• In print:

Cradled in Sweden by Carl-Erik Johansson (Everton, 2002).

Letters from the Promised Land: Swedes in America 1840-1914 b7 H. Arnold Barton (Univ. of Minnesota Press, 2000)

Roos af Hjelmsäter: A Swedish Noble Family, with Allied Families and Emigrants by Lillie Rollins Crawford and Robert J. Crawford (Genealogical Publishing Company, 1996).

Scandinavian-American Genealogical Resources by Charles Dickson (Heritage Books, 2004)

Your Swedish Roots: A Step-by-Step Handbook by Per Clemensson (Ancestry 2004)

By: Carolyn L. Barkley

Ohio has been on my mind frequently in the past few days. Several Facebook friends have reported that they are participating in the Ohio Genealogical Society’s annual conference, Expanding Your Ancestry Through Technology, this week. In just under two weeks, I will be traveling to Ohio to attend the National Genealogical Society’s 2012 Family History Conference in Cincinnati.

As I have no personal research (as yet!) in Ohio, I thought I would learn a little about its history and research resources before I visited the state. It seemed like a perfect opportunity to share some of that information with you.

In addition to being rich in Native American history (Algonquians, Iroquois, Tuscaroras, Senecas, Eries, and many more), Ohio’s contact with Europeans began in the late 1600s when explorer Rene-Robert Cavelier claimed land for France. In 1750, the Ohio Company of Virginia claimed land for Britain. Later, the outcome of wars in the eighteenth century helped to define the path of Ohio history. French interests would continue until the Treaty of Paris in 1763 end the French and Indian War, at which time Britain was granted possession of former French territories. In 1779, following a successful military expedition by George Rogers Clark and the Virginia militia, Virginia laid claim to all of the Old Northwest Territory, calling it Illinois County, Virginia. Virginia would maintain its interest in the region until 1784, a year after another Treaty of Paris ended the Revolutionary War, and even as it ceded much of its western territories to the new federal land system. The Northwest Territory was established in 1787 and included all U.S. land west of Pennsylvania and northwest of the Ohio River, including what would become the modern states of Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and the northeastern part of Minnesota.  Official settlement began at Marietta in 1788. Politically, the region existed as an incorporated territory until 1803, when the southeastern section was admitted into the Union as the state of Ohio. Its capital was established first at Chillicothe in 1803, then moved to Zanesville in 1810, finally settling in Columbus by 1816.

If your ancestors moved eastward from the Atlantic seaboard, Ohio might be an important addition to your research strategies of one of two circumstances drew your ancestor to or through Ohio.

• Bounty lands. Prior to the Revolutionary War, many states claimed lands that stretched far westward of their modern-day boundaries. At the end of the war, Connecticut claimed Ohio land north of the forty-first parallel and westward to the present-day counties of Sandusky and Seneca. The state set aside 500,000 acres of the “Connecticut Western Reserve,” sometimes referred to as the “Firelands,” to compensate its citizens for the war-related losses of specific towns. These towns included Danbury, East Haven, Fairfield, Greenwich, Groton, New Haven, New London, Norwalk and Ridgefield, all virtually destroyed by the British. Approximately 1800 individuals were provided property in the Firelands by lottery, principally in the Ohio counties of Erie, Huron, Ashland and Ottawa. These grants are most often found in deed records, and an excellent source of information is found in Volume 1 of Clifford Neal Smith’s Federal Land Series (Clearfield, 2007). This source provides a list of “sufferers” from the several affected towns.

Virginia awarded bounty land in Ohio despite having ceded much of its formerly-claimed vast western land holdings to the federal land system after the Revolutionary War. The Virginia Military District of Ohio was specifically reserved for grants to those Virginia veterans who had served in the Virginia Continental Line. This distinction is significant as you search for your Virginia Revolutionary soldier because state militia veterans were granted land in Kentucky, but not in Ohio. Two essential research resources are George W. Knepper’s The Official Ohio Lands Book (State Auditor’s Office, 2002) which is available online, and Volume 4 of Smith’s Federal Land Series. Other resources include Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck’s Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants Awarded by State Governments (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2006) and Allen Latham’s A Roll of the Officers in the Virginia Line of the Revolutionary Army, Who Have Received Land Bounty in the States of Ohio and Kentucky (listed by Amazon as out-of-print, so be sure to check the catalog of your local library or historical society for availability). It is also important to note, the while Ohio is a federal-land state, Virginia retained its metes and bounds land description system to describe land tracts within the military district.

• Transportation Improvements. With the opening up of western lands, improvements in transportation allowed the more convenient (probably a relative term) migration of individuals and families westward. Such improvements led to Ohio with the Ohio and Erie Canals completed by 1832; the Miami and Erie Canal, completed by 1845; various migration trails, such as Zane’s Trace, that led into and through the state; and the significant navigable river system, including the Ohio River. Charles B. Galbreath’s five-volume History of Ohio (American Historical Society, 1925), is an important source and is owned by a long-list of libraries throughout the country.

If you are traveling to the NGS Conference in May, allow time for research during your trip. Several important research venues are located in Cincinnati, or within a few hours’ travel.

• The Public Library of Cincinnati & Hamilton County is located within a half-mile of the conference and will offer extended Thursday evening hours for conference registrants. Its Genealogy and Local History Department are located on the third floor of the south building. Its genealogical collection is well worth your attention, either in-person during the conference, or online. Of interest, is an online family surname index created by the library and listing family history books that index a specific surname three or more times. To access this search, choose the “Catalog Advanced Search” option on the advanced search page (a bit difficult to find) and locate the “Family Surname” search box. My Barclay search located ninety-five titles, and my Barkley search located sixty-five. The vast majority did not include those specific surnames in their titles. Other important collections include Ohio death certificates for 1908-1953; Kentucky death certificates 1911-1957; and a collection of over 1,300 genealogical periodicals. Collection strengths include German, Irish, and Jewish ancestry, as well as an extensive African-American collection possessing plantation records, Freedmen’s Bureau Records and military records of the USCT. Conference attendees in particular will want to download the library’s sixteen-page Greater Cincinnati Genealogical Resources document.
• Cincinnati History Library and Archives, formerly known as the Cincinnati Historical Society Library, located at Union Terminal, focuses on the greater Cincinnati area, Ohio, and the Northwest Territory. The Library, founded in 1831, provides a regional history collection including photographs, manuscripts, printed materials, and digital journals (search or browse online) including the Cincinnati Historical Society Bulletin, the Quarterly Publication of the Historical and Philosophical Society of Ohio, and Ohio Valley History.
• University of Cincinnati’s Archives and Rare Books Library is located on the 8^th floor in Blegen Library (temporary location). Its houses an important collection of German Americana. The Ohio Network provides online access to a series of digital databases including the on-going Cincinnati Birth and Death Record, 1865-1908 project, currently with 500,000 entries; Hamilton County Citizenship Records, 1837-1916; and Hamilton County Wills, 1791-1901, among other resources. An intriguing collection (not online) is the Cincinnati Correctional Institute (Workhouse) Jail Registers1877-1945.
• Located within 100 to 150 miles of Cincinnati are such major research institutions as the State Library of Ohio and the Ohio Historical Society, as well as the Kentucky Historical Society, the Kentucky Department for Libraries and Archives, the Filson Historical Society, the Indiana State Archives, the Indiana State Library, and the Genealogy Center at the Allen County Public Library. If you are driving, you may want to make research stops en route to or from Cincinnati.

A series of printed and online resources are available to assist you in planning for and conducting Ohio research.

Genealogical.com includes 134 titles relating to Ohio. One of the most helpful is Kip Sperry’s Genealogical Research in Ohio, 2^nd ed. (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2006). Others include Carol W. Bell’s Ohio Guide to Genealogical Sources (Clearfield, 2009) and Ohio Wills and Estates to 1850: an Index (Clearfield, 1981); Gaius Marcus Brumbaugh’s Revolutionary War Records: Virginia: Virginia Army and Navy Forces with Bounty Land Warrants for Virginia Military District of Ohio… (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2008); and Albion M. Dyer’s First Ownership of Ohio Lands (Clearfield, 2008).

Cyndi’s List provides 5,639 links to online Ohio resources, including the Ohio Blacksheep Ancestors’ access to prison records and the Southeast Ohio Digital Shoebox Project, a site providing access to 2,600 images from photograph collections held by ten southeast Ohio public libraries. Other online sites include Ohio Genealogy; Ohio History Central; and the FamilySearch Wiki which offers 1,672 articles pertaining to Ohio.

I hope that this brief outline of Ohio resources will assist you in your research. If you are at the NGS Conference, please stop by the Genealogical Publishing Company booth (421, 520) and say hi. If you suggest an upcoming blog topic, you will earn my undying appreciation!

By: Carolyn L. Barkley

I will begin this article with a major disclaimer. With the exception of my iPod and my iPad, I am a devoted PC user, and foresee no possibility of moving over to the Mac side of the technology world beyond the two devices I just mentioned. Don’t get me wrong. I love my iPad and use it daily for a variety of functions including my calendar, a to do list, Evernote, Dropbox, pinball, the daily New York Times Crossword Puzzle, Netflix movies, FamilySearch indexing, Ancestry, lecture presentations, and my favorite pastime, listening to every broadcast Red Sox baseball game (as I’m typing they are losing to the Texas Rangers by 5 to 2 in the third). I do not, however, use it for narrative composition. First, I just can’t get past the inability to right click! More importantly, however, my first (and so far only) experience in using my iPad and its Bluetooth keyboard to transcribe wills in the Augusta County (Virginia) Courthouse proved to be a disaster. I was happily typing my third will when, suddenly, it was as if some invisible finger descended onto the backspace key and I saw an hour’s worth of work unravel in front of my eyes. I could not find a way to stop its inexorable deletions! The extended fallout of this problem was the inability to type in other apps, a problem resolved only by turning the iPad completely off and holding my breath when I restarted it. Functionality was restored, but I have not tempted fate with the keyboard again.

Despite this rather eerie and exasperating experience, my interest in using my iPad to write family history was rekindled (no pun intended) when I attended a lecture by Lisa A. Also, A Dozen Ways to Use Your iPad2 for Genealogy and Writing, during RootsTech 2012. Lisa’s lecture prompted me to investigate a variety of apps that offer support for aspiring family history writers.

1. How well do you write? I am convinced, based on my client-work experience, that anyone aspiring to write stories or a book about the history of his or her family needs to learn how to write well (either acquiring new skills or brushing up on those acquired in the past). It is not enough to let your genealogical software “write” the book for you. You will need to add anecdotal information to enhance the often bland recitation of dates and places. The stories that you will want to tell need to be well-written in order to engage the reader and add understanding and value to the saga of your ancestors’ lives. An app developed by The Professional Writing Academy, entitled How to Write Your Family History, states that it is the “first in a series of mobile learning courses from the Academy.” Its press release states that “We know how to teach people to write effectively in all forms, from novels to emails. We also understand how many people want to learn new skills, but lack the time to undertake formal study.” The app is available from iTunes where, however, it is listed only as an iPhone app (with no plus sign indicating use on both iPad and iPhone). However, The Professional Writing Academy website homepage includes a link to the app stating that it is for use on iPhone, iPad, and Android. If you follow the link to a full description of the product, you will find a qualification that eBook and Android versions are “coming soon.” In iTunes, a click on the iPhone app icon for How to Write Your Family History leads to the product description page which states “compatible with iPhone, iPod touch, and iPad. Requires iOS 4.0 or later.” At $5.99, however, the price may be low enough for you to take a chance. There are no reviews available on the app’s iTunes page.

You may also want to explore The Professional Writing Academy site further as it offers many services including manuscript review and suggestions for publication options.

1. How can you access and use current documents – particularly Microsoft documents? As my work is predominantly Microsoft Word based, researching answers to this question continues to be an important pursuit. When I first received my iPad2, I promptly looked for apps that would facilitate my use of existing Microsoft documents. I downloaded the Pages app after reading that it would open Word documents and allow edits and additions, while also permitting me to resave them in Word format. I have used Pages (still grumbling about the absence about of right click ability) and it is okay. My concern is that the one time I used it to edit and submit my blog copy, the person to whom I sent it had difficulty opening the file in Word, thus negating the timeliness and convenience I was looking for when away from home at deadline time. I have also moved documents into Evernote, but find that while some files open with no problem, more frequently, I get an error message that says “An error occurred while reading the document.” My work-around for this issue has been to generate a pdf version of the same document which then opens with no problem, but reduces functionality (more on that later). In researching this article, I have discovered Quickoffice Connect Mobile Suite for iPad. A bit more expensive at $19.99, it is however, “the #1 office editing suite for iPad” and will “edit ALL Microsoft Office® document, spreadsheet, and presentation format, as well as view PDF files, on the go.” Editing capabilities include formatting text, numbers, colors, paragraphs, backgrounds and cells. It also provides a virtual laser pointer and VGA-out support for presentations. The app is Cloud compatible (MobileMe, Dropbox, Google®Docs, and Evernote). If the product delivers on its description promises, I will definitely be downloading it. The app is available through the iTunes store under the title Quickoffice Pro-HD.

If you share documents as pdf files, you will want to check out GoodReader. This powerful app not only reads pdf documents, but provides mark-up capabilities including typewriter text boxes; “sticky-note” popup comments; text highlights; freehand drawings such as lines, arrows, rectangles, and ovals; text underlines; strikeouts; and text insertion marks.  You can also create folders, move, copy, rename, and email your files as well as synch to Dropbox. The $4.99 cost seems very reasonable considering the functionality of the app.

1. How can I collect and/or organize new research information? Evernote is probably one of the best tools available for collecting and organizing notes, web pages, photos, videos, etc.  – and better yet, it’s a free app. Cloud technology allows you to access your documents and folders from all of your devices including your desktop PC, your laptop, your iPad, and your Smartphone (I have it on my Android). Evernote is available on iTunes, although you will have to install it on your PC or laptop from the Evernote site. I use Dropbox to move files between my PC and my laptop. I work on projects from within Dropbox and the synched version is then available to me wherever I happen to be. It keeps files easily accessible during trips, and no more thumb drives to keep track of. 2GB is included in the basic account. Again, Dropbox is available on iTunes for your iPad, but you will need to download on your PC or laptop from the Dropbox site. If you use an Android phone, search in the “Play Store.”

You may also be interested in other ways to record information. Dragon Dictation is probably the foremost voice-recognition app, particularly as it is available at no cost. I had hoped to use it for a current project in which I am interviewing individuals for a community history book. Unfortunately, it appears that this app does not work with multiple voices, and reviews on iTunes are mixed. People seem to love it, or like it not at all. It claims to produce documents five times faster than typing and that would be useful in drafting client reports, email messages, and compiling notes. It would not be useful in libraries, courthouses and other public places where others might be disturbed.

I have always wondered about handwriting notes or drawing diagrams on the iPad. I downloaded My Script Memo but discovered that, regardless of settings adjustments, the end of my finger made far too broad a line so that I could get a very few words per screen! I tried a stylus but it did not register. The Penultimate app seems as if it might provide a useful alternative. Its description indicates that a stylus will work and Cloud integration is available via Evernote and Dropbox. For 99 cents, the price is certainly right.

1. How can I print the document I’ve created on my iPad? I avoid this problem by synching my document into Dropbox and then printing it from either my desktop or my laptop. However, if you need to print from your iPad, PrintCentral may provide the answer. This app allows you to print direct to most wireless printers without additional software and to print via 3G when Wi-Fi is not available. The app costs $8.99 and the PrintCentralPro app is available for an additional dollar.

The world of iPad apps expands continuously. Although your iPad will alert you to available updates to apps that you have downloaded previously, it is worth frequent iTunes store visits to see what new opportunities may be available. A comparison chart of a number of writing-related apps is available at Inkygirl.com. I will be trying my Bluetooth keyboard again and downloading several of the apps described above. Meanwhile let’s hone writing skills and share our ancestors’ stories.

You may also want to refer to the following print sources:

For All Time: a Complete Guide to Writing Your Family History by Charley Kempthorne (Boynton/Cook, 1996).

Genealogical Writing in the 21^st Century: a Guide to Register Style and More edited by Michael J. Leclerc and Henry B. Hoff, 2^nd ed. (New England Historic Genealogical Society, 2006).

Legacy: A Step-by-Step Guide to Writing Personal History by Linda Spence (Swallow Press, 1997).

Writing Family Histories and Memoirs by Kirk Polking (Betterway Books, 1995).

You Can Write Your Family History by Sharon DeBartolo Carmack (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2009).

By: Carolyn L. Barkley

I frequently hear myself say that the Revolutionary War period is not my favorite time period in which to research. I’m unsure precisely why that might be, but perhaps it is due to my continuing feeling that I don’t know enough about this period in American history, or perhaps it is because this war has not caught my attention the way the Civil War has. That latter reason is probably inexplicable. The first however represents an ongoing invitation to increase my knowledge, and I continually take advantage of opportunities to learn about the historical events of the late eighteenth century as well as the resources which make the events and the people involved in them more accessible and understandable. Ironically, as I look back on four years of weekly blog articles (over 200 and counting), I find that I have written five articles about topics related to Revolutionary War records and resources, perhaps more articles than on any other single topic. So, in the midst of our Civil War commemoration and the bicentennial observance of the War of 1812, I turn again to the Revolutionary War and share with you some of the information from previous articles, including updated information and resources where available. For a more detailed discussion of Revolutionary War topics, please refer to the original article postings on this blog site.

I believe that it is important to learn about the resources and records that are available before beginning to research a specific topic. Several sources will prove helpful in providing that all-important background information. One of the most concise research aids (presented in a format that is easy to take with you on research trips) is Craig Robert Scott’s Revolutionary War Genealogy Research, one of the newer additions to Genealogical Publishing Company’s Genealogy at a Glance series. Scott provides very useful information on locating and using lineage society records, pension records, compiled military service records, muster rolls, settled accounts, bounty land records, loyalist records, census records, and information contained in manuscript collections. For more in-depth historical treatments of the conflict, you may want to consider David McCullough’s 1776 (Simon & Schuster, 2005); Samuel B. Griffith’s The War for American Independence from 1760 to the Surrender at Yorktown in 1781 (University of Illinois Press, 2002), or, if you are more visually oriented, the 2004 PBS series, Liberty! The American Revolution, available on DVD. Meanwhile, here are the salient issues that will help guide your research:

1. Did my ancestor serve?

Your ancestor may have served in the Continental Army, authorized by the Continental Congress, or may have served in a state militia unit. Records may be available at both the federal and state levels. While fires at the War Department in November 1800, and at the Treasury Department in August 1814, destroyed many of the early Revolutionary War service records, many have now been reconstructed from other sources.

Print compilations include Virgil White’s four-volume Index to Revolutionary War Service Records (National Historical Publ. Co., 1995), which provides service record abstracts containing soldier’s name, unit and rank; Frank B. Heitman’s Historical Register of Officers of the Continental Army During the War of the Revolution (Clearfield, 2008); and Pierce’s Register (Clearfield, 2002), which approximates a complete roster of the Continental Army with 93,000 names. These sources will help focus your research about a specific individual, after which you will want to access the original records. If you will be using microfilm, refer to the National Archive’s Military Service Records publication, which lists, among other titles, the microfilm holdings in Record Group 93, including general indices to the compiled military service records of Revolutionary War soldiers (M860), and the compiled service records themselves (M881). In addition, the Revolutionary War Rolls (M246) provide access by unit to muster rolls, payrolls, and other miscellaneous records.

Even better access and images are provided online by Fold3 in such collections of digitized images as Revolutionary War Pensions, Revolutionary War Service Records, Revolutionary War Rolls, Service Records of Volunteers, and Final Vouchers Index for Military Pension Payments. (Fold3 requires subscription access by individuals, but may be used for free at the National Archives or at subscribing public libraries). State militia records may be contained in the collections of state archives and historical societies. A good strategy is to check for further information and digital collections on the web sites for these types of institutions. Others state-level records, such as Penelope Johnson Allen’s Tennessee Soldiers in the Revolution (Clearfield 2008), have been published.

If you do not find your ancestor serving with the American patriots, you must consider whether or not he may have been a Loyalist. Loyalists were those North American colonists who remained loyal to the British Crown during the American Revolution. The greatest concentration of Loyalists lived in New York, a bastion of British influence for most of the Revolutionary period. These individuals tended to be Anglican, better-educated, and more well-to-do. Loyalists were also quite numerous in Pennsylvania, North Carolina, and Georgia. In the more southern states, particularly in South Carolina, they were more often back-country farmers. While Loyalists were found in other colonies as well, they were in the distinct minority in areas such as New England and Virginia. Many had their land and property confiscated, suffered the indignity of being tarred and feathered, or in some cases lost their lives. It is estimated that approximately 100,000 Loyalists left the colonies, about half of them going to Canada, beginning in 1783. Some families would return to the newly-independent United States soon after the war, others would remain in Canada through several generations before finally returning. Resources to assist you in locating a Loyalist ancestor include materials found online at The On-Line Institute for Advanced Loyalist Studies and in such printed materials as the two-volume United Empire Loyalists: Enquiry into the Losses and Services in Consequence of Their Loyalty… by Alexander Fraser (Clearfield, 1994), and Lorenzo Sabine’s Biographical Sketches of Loyalists of the American Revolution, 2^nd ed. (1864, reprinted by Clearfield, 2005).

1. Did your ancestor receive bounty land and/or a pension?

After you have established that your ancestor did have military service, you will want to determine whether or not he received bounty land and whether or not he or his widow received a pension. Many resources provide access to pension information including the National Genealogical Society’s Index of Revolutionary War Pension Applications in the National Archives (NGS, 1976). More specialized titles are the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Rejected or Suspended Applications for Revolutionary War Pensions (Clearfield, 2003), and the U. S. War Department’s Pensioners of the Revolutionary War – Struck Off the Roll (Clearfield, 2008). Of particular interest are two titles by Lloyd DeWitt Bockstruck: Revolutionary War Bounty Land Grants Awarded by State Governments (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1996) and Revolutionary War Pensions Awarded by State Governments 1775-1874, the General and Federal Governments Prior to 1814, and by Private Acts of Congress to 1905 (Genealogical Publishing Co., 2011).

1. Does your ancestor appear in lineage society application information?

Both the Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) and the Sons of the American Revolution (SAR) provide access to information submitted on membership applications.

The DAR’s Patriot Index has long been a seminal work in identifying Revolutionary War patriots. The organization’s web site provides access to the Ancestor Database, containing “the names of Revolutionary War Patriots whose service and identity have been established by the DAR. Included is information on the dates and places of birth and death, names of spouses, residence during the Revolution, rank and type of service, and the state where the patriot served.” When searching for my Revolutionary ancestor, Oliver Lanfare, I was directed to an alternative spelling (Lamphear). I was then able to locate his information including the fact that he was a private in Capt. Hall’s (Colonel Webb’s) 7^th Connecticut regiment. It also provided his birth (1749) and death (7 May 1812) dates, his residence (Branford, Connecticut), and his wife’s name (Phoebe). A long list of associated applications and supplemental files are also provided including his son, Oliver, and his wife Lois Willard, from whom I descend. For those unable to travel to the DAR Library in Washington, D.C., record copies may be purchased directly through the web site.

SAR application records are available on Ancestry.com. Online access to this resource is particularly helpful as since 1978, the SAR Genealogical Research Library has been located in Louisville, Kentucky. By using application information from both the DAR and the SAR, much information can be added to your research (although you will need to document the information independently).

1. How can I add detail to the Revolutionary War experiences of my ancestor?

Craig Scott’s blog, As Craig Sees It, includes a wonderful sentence, which states in part: “…the journey [of genealogy] is not about being a hatch, match and dispatch kind of person, but a genealogist with fat ancestors on the ground with garlands of citations around them and the aura of sources about them.”

Even as we collect the specifics of our ancestor’s Revolutionary War service and establish timelines through analysis of the various records, we need to “fatten up” our ancestor with anecdotal, background information. While this type of information will probably not mention him by name, it will provide a richer understanding of the place and time in which he lived and events in which he participated, or would at least may have known about. I am always on the lookout for such resources. They can range from formal titles such as Resolutions, Laws, and Ordinances Relating to the Officers and Soldiers of the Revolution (Genealogical Publishing Co., 1998), to more general titles such as James Schouler’s Americans of 1776, Daily Life in Revolutionary America (Clearfield, 2007).

Often friends are the best source of interesting titles. One of my friends recently told me about Edwin G. Burrows’ Forgotten Patriots: the Untold Story of American Prisoners During the Revolutionary War (Basic Books, 2010). This book tells the story of the approximately 25,000 Americans who became British prisoners of war, many of them on prison ships in New York harbor. The inhuman conditions they endured would lead to the deaths of perhaps as many as 18,000, a rate more than twice that of battlefield deaths. This book is now on the top of my list of upcoming reading.

First-hand accounts are significant in enhancing our knowledge. Several interesting diaries include the Memoir of a Revolutionary Soldier: the Narrative of Joseph Plumb Martin (Dover, 2006), Uzal Johnson, Loyalist Journal: a Revolutionary War Diary (Scotia Hibernia Press, 2000), and for ages 9 and up, The Winter of Red Snow: the Revolutionary War Diary of Abigail Jane Stewart, Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, 1777 (Live Oak Media, 2005).

Finally, one of the most interesting books that I’ve used in the past year is Maureen Taylor’s The Last Muster: Images of the Revolutionary War Generation (Kent State University Press, 2010). The 1780s seem shrouded in the distant past. Yet looking at the illustrations included in this book offers an unprecedented immediacy to those years, whether it is through a daguerreotype of Caesar, a slave (1737-1852); or the definitely skeptical looking Conrad Heyer, of Maine (1753-1856); or the aged dignity of Tirzah (Whitney) Palmer, of Massachusetts (1769-1852).

I hope that this review of Revolutionary War resources has whetted your appetite to learn more about your Revolutionary War ancestor and to read about this important historical time period in more depth.

By: Carolyn L. Barkley

Some of my more enjoyable moments have occurred in cemeteries – and if that doesn’t mark me as a genealogist, I don’t know what does. Cemeteries have atmosphere: smooth slate stones in centuries-old New England church yards, the overgrown brambles and almost unreadable stones of a long-undisturbed southern family plot, the austere white rows of military headstones. I am attracted by sense of timelessness and quiet that pervades cemeteries, as well as their artwork, and the stories the grave stones have to tell. I have walked many of them both in this country and in England and Scotland, regardless of whether any of my relatives have been buried in them. Some of my cemetery experiences have resolved difficult research problems like the Springfield Cemetery (Massachusetts) location of a stone providing the name of a woman’s second husband, which enabled me to locate the Civil War pension of her first husband, my great-great uncle, George H. Duncan). Others have been frustrating when I could not find the location of a gravesite. (Despite three attempts, I am still unable to locate the grave site of J.E.B. Stuart in Hollywood Cemetery in Richmond, Virginia, despite directions and maps). I have met interesting people who have helped me locate grave sites, and I have encountered incredibly helpful cemetery office workers who have willingly provided me with copies of information from their files (and who occasionally have corrected their information based on documents I could provide). I have learned not to go into the woods carrying a roll of white paper for rubbing when its hunting season, and I have learned to carry clippers, gloves and other appropriate tools in the jeep – just in case I encounter a cemetery I can’t resist. I would have enjoyed being alive when the upkeep of family plots was a social occasion in which the family met to clean and decorate the family gravestones, share stories about the individuals interred there, and have “dinner on the ground.” Perhaps the fact that my youngest granddaughter likes cemeteries, particularly if she can take pictures, is a step in the right direction.

Cemetery research has become easier over the past several years, with more and more information available online. It has also become more interactive, with sites offering the opportunity to post pictures, transcriptions, and information about families and their grave stones in specific cemeteries. Here are a few useful sites (presented in no particular order and not intended to be inclusive) that will assist you in your research.

• Find a Grave. This site is one of my favorites. Currently, it has seventy-eight million grave records and offers the opportunity to search for a specific individual, or a specific cemetery. My first extensive use of this site came when I was looking into my husband’s Rowell family in South Carolina (Marion County and Charleston). A contributor to Find a Grave had provided numerous Rowell entries in various cemeteries, complete with photographs and the names and dates for spouses and descendants (often linked to their grave stone picture and further family information). First, my discovery spared me from hours of research and visits to cemeteries (sometimes I’m willing to forgo the first-hand experience!). Second, the information included in each entry provided me with many clues for further research, and provided details that assisted me while researching in Charleston. This experience has caused me to revisit this site many times and I plan to become an active contributor as I discover new information.
• Billion Graves. I learned about this site while attending RootsTech this past February. This site invites you to download an Android (available from Android Market) or iPhone/iPad app (available from iTunes) with which to collect photographs of headstones in your local cemetery and then upload them to the site. Transcriptions from uploaded photographs make the information available to researchers. Accurate locations of cemeteries and grave sites are provided with a link to Google maps. Searching the site for information is simple, as Billion Graves enables searches for a specific name and date, as well as a particular cemetery. Filters allow for geographic specificity, and as you are typing in the state or country, immediately tells you whether there are matches available – even before you click the search button. While I have not yet had any personal research success with this site (for example Evergreen Cemetery in Stonington, Connecticut, has only one grave stone photograph currently available), it is one to which I will return periodically and to which I also plan to contribute, having downloaded the two apps so that I can use either my phone or my iPad camera depending on the circumstances.
• Names in Stone. This site describes itself as a “unique online repository designed to help researchers find and document cemetery records and maps. As with the previous two interactive cemetery sites, it invites individuals and cemeteries to contribute images and information to the site. Again, I had no personal success, but the coverage for my states of interest is still minimal one cemetery in Connecticut, fifteen in Virginia, five in Maryland, three in Massachusetts, and five in South Carolina (none of them helpful in my research). So, get out there and add some photos! Perhaps your genealogical or historical society can adopt a local cemetery as a project.
• Cemetery Records Online. If you are looking for a source to provide links to cemetery resources, this site will be very helpful. Topics are varied, including Laurie’s Indiana Cemeteries, the Commonwealth War Graves Commission (personal and service details for 1.7 million members of the Commonwealth forces who died during World Wars I and II), Barnstable County (Cape Code), Massachusetts gravestones dated before 1800, and Texas State Cemetery, and Rosewood Cemetery (Livermore, California) Burial Records, 1920-1999. Other links can be found on Cyndi’s List and Free Online Cemetery and Tombstone Transcriptions and Burial Registers. This latter site provides access to a wide range of links that lead to cemetery plot plans, tombstone transcriptions, and/or photos, as well as burial and death registers, with a focus on those located in the Canadian provinces.
• Other sites of interest include Searchable Cemeteries; the AHGP [American Genealogy and History Project] Cemetery Transcription and Photo Project; the Cemetery Junction Directory; which provides links to cemeteries in Australia as well as the United States and Canada; and Tombstones and Monumental Inscriptions, which provides links to cemeteries in New Zealand, Australia, Canada, Europe, and the U.K. and Ireland, as well as the United States, and various general cemetery-related sites.

A variety of other resources provide useful information – and good reading – about cemeteries. Some of my favorites are:

A Guide to Massachusetts Cemeteries by David Allen Lambert (NEHGS, 2002)

Hollywood Cemetery: the History of a Southern Shrine by Mary H. Mitchell (The Library of Virginia, 1999). This title includes a photograph of J.E.B. Stuart’s grave and a map marking its location, so I know it exists, even if I haven’t discovered it!)

Names in Stone: 75,000 Cemetery Inscriptions from Frederick County, Maryland, 2 volumes, by Jacob Mehrling Holdcraft (Genealogical Publishing Co., reprinted 2002).

Permanent Londoners: an Illustrated, Biographical Guide to the Cemeteries of London, by Judi Culbertson and Tom Randall (Walker, 1991).

Scottish Monuments and Tombstones by Rev. Charles Rogers, 2 volumes (1871, reprinted 1997, Heritage Books).

Sticks and Stones: Three Centuries of North Carolina Gravemarkers by M. Ruth Little (U. of North Carolina Press, 1998).

Stones and Bones of New England, a Guide to Unusual, Historic and Otherwise Notable Cemeteries by Lisa Rogak (Globe Pequot Press, 2004)

Stories in Stone: A Field Guide to Cemetery Symbolism and Iconography by Douglas Keister (Gibbs Smith, 2004).

A keyword search for “cemeteries” on genealogical.com provides a list of forty-five titles that include cemetery information. Finally, be sure to check out the The Association of Gravestone Studies web site and the Graveyard Rabbit Online Journal.