<p>scout,</p>
<p>My understanding is that it varies by county. Some are available; some are not. The branches don’t have them, just 42d Street. I’d suggest going to wwwDOTnypl.org. and looking for the “Ask a librarian” or calling and seeing if you can get connected to the Milstein Division and ask what it has. If you can’t get through to Milstein, ask for room 119. That’s the room that has microfilms. The desk attendant may be willing to check the list for you.</p>
<p>Thanks, Hugcheck!</p>
<p>For anyone near Washington DC, you can go to the DAR library. They charge a small entrance fee, but it’s nominal. They have many out of print books that haven’t been put online. </p>
<p>Many of you have mentioned the Mormons, because their interest in genealogy lead them to create a great library. But don’t forget the Quakers. During the 1700’s they kept meticulous records of their membership, including marriages, births, and deaths. Also, anyone who left one “meeting” and moved to another, was recorded as leaving with a letter for that meeting. It’s as if they kept a map of your family. The minutes of all these meetings have been compiled, and you can access them online.</p>
<p>Another hint: people may go by different names depending on the source. For instance, John Hiram Smith might be referred to as Hiram Smith in the newspaper and in letters, but in the census and other official places, he may appear as John Smith, J. Hiram, or John H. This is more likely to happen if an older member of the family has the same name. </p>
<p>Poetgrl, I totally understand the German vs French thing, as I have the same problem. Most of us just do what they did, and say they’re from Alsace. </p>
<p>One last comment: The US has the same problem as Alsace did to a certain extent. One of my families lived at the same address for decades, but were in a territory, a state, and 4 counties within the state - all without moving. Since many records are kept at the county level, I have to look in all the counties for various times of the same family.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap, I have not done African American research, but there are a lot of sites for that work. First, I’d suggest pulling all the original documentation on your father. I believe Alabama had birth certificates starting around 1913. Check the 1920 and 1930 census records for a child of his age. How about the draft? He probably registered. Most draft records are on line. Check the social security records. Do you know your grandparents’ names? You can probably find them in the census too. The census records give lots of information about schooling, occupations, where their parents were born, etc. Good luck.</p>
<p>Shrinkrap, </p>
<p>If you look at the list I copied from the NYPL, you’ll see there’s a data base of African-American newspapers. Many libraries have it. You might try it. </p>
<p>Also, listen on-line to the segment on “Who Do You Think You Are?” about Emmit Smith. e is African-American and there was some discussion of how to search slave ancestors–assuming your ancestors were slaves. This Friday’s show is about Vanessa Williams and may also have info on Af-Am records.</p>
<p>Joining in late here - but the book “Who Do You Think You Are?” had a nice section on African American research - introductory level. This book would probably be at your library.</p>
<p>Kajon -</p>
<p>Sorry not to have answered sooner but others have mentioned saving data via gedcom files. </p>
<p>There is also good old fashioned paper—I have printed partial trees, etc from Ancestry & Geni, to send to my FIL who does not use a computer. And I have printed the images of census sheets to send to relatives who just like to see the page their family is on, the names of the neighbors, occupations and so forth–you can learn a lot from a census sheet & it isn’t only about looking at the one family!</p>
<p>I knew that a distant ancestor had married in a particular church and wanted to do research there. It was in a different state, but I found its web page which stated that all the genealogical records had been moved to a central state archive. </p>
<p>That, and copies of all the records were in a public library in East Baton Rouge parish. That library (the Bluebonnet branch) has extensive genealogical records and resources. It may be that there are other public libraries throughout the county that have similar resources. The following link is from that library, listing books that have good how-to information about genealogy.</p>
<p>[Genealogy</a> Resources Pathfinder](<a href=“http://www.ebr.lib.la.us/reference/pathfinder/genealogy.htm]Genealogy”>http://www.ebr.lib.la.us/reference/pathfinder/genealogy.htm)</p>
<p>I’m happy to say I spent a few hours in the Bluebonnet library, xeroxed a few things, and went home to put the puzzle together. That info, paired with things I found on the Ancestry site (in particular, looking at someone else’s family tree) helped me find out about my father’s father’s family going back to the 1500’s. Very cool! If only I could find out that much about the rest of my family.</p>
<p>Here’s a good link, from the previous link. Volunteers who will help you do research!</p>
<p>[Free</a> Genealogy Research – Random Acts of Genealogical Kindness](<a href=“http://www.raogk.org/]Free”>http://www.raogk.org/)</p>
<p>I second hayden’s warning: use what’s available online, but verify! There is a LOT of misinformation out there, especially from private family tree data. </p>
<p>I have been working on my family history for about 13 years, primarily via the Internet. You can get a lot of info from primary sources (like census, birth, marriage, death, military records) through services like Ancestry.com and familysearch.org but always verify as much as possible and don’t forget to ask those who are still around and able to remember the more recent histories! These primary sources are not necessarily so accurate. Surname spellings can be changed depending on how the individual or the census taker or county clerk felt a name should be spelled. Ages can jump around a LOT depending on who a census taker talked to in the home or whether someone could remember all their kids’ birth years or wanted to be truthful! Genders can be marked incorrectly, etc.</p>
<p>The Rootsweb.com mail lists for surnames, geographic areas (global, regional, and local), ethnic, and cultural groups can be a great resource, too, and a good way to find distant cousins! Each list is archived and can be searched.</p>
<p>Good luck in any case and have fun with your research! I’ve traced a couple of lines back to the 1500’s or earlier in one case but must now subscribe to the global resources through Ancestry.com to get to the next step across the Atlantic for most of my lines.</p>
<p>Bromfield – I am also tracking Croatian relatives, some of whom emigrated to Australia and some of whom came to the US!<br>
Shrinkwrap – Ancestry has added a fair number of African American resources in the past few years; definitely worth looking there.</p>
<p>I really got into this last spring and summer after a nephew started asking me questions. The first thing I did was gather up all the family paper that was sitting around – in my family, I’m the one who had it. All these bits and pieces were hugely valuable – everything from diplomas, to my grandmother’s divorce decree (from Reno!) which is what led to the long wondered about marriage record that we’d never been able to find, to alien registration cards, … In most families, somebody keeps all that stuff. I had tossed much of it in a large box, and when I went through it there really was a tremendous amount of data to be mined right at home. </p>
<p>Next I started into the Ancestry and similar data resources to see what I could find and what questions remained. Some were easier than others. Farmers are nice. They stay. they plant. They pay taxes. They have large families who stay, and plant, and pay taxes. They get written up in local newspapers, and if they sell up that is likely to be written up too. But my NY Irish saloon keeper great grandfather is a tougher nut, particularly since the Irish seem to have been remarkably unimaginative when it came to names. Lots of emigrants share his name, and I’m still stuck tracking him back. </p>
<p>Then, I started talking to older relatives, taking copious notes. And then loop the process. </p>
<p>Ancestry does make it easy to download the source documents to a thumb drive, and I do that. </p>
<p>I also have a Word document (several, actually) that tracks all the information and citations for each of the people I’m tracking, and where I can clearly include hypotheses or unverified information appropriately labeled. </p>
<p>I don’t trust the family trees Ancestry suggests – so far only one has proven to be reliable our of the five lines I’m following. The rest make leaps of faith that I don’t get, or use information that is flat-out contradicted by source documents that I think are of reasonable quality.</p>
<p>Here is the FamilySearch page on African American history</p>
<p>[FamilySearch.org</a> - Family History and Genealogy Records](<a href=“http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp?page=home/welcome/site_resources.asp]FamilySearch.org”>http://www.familysearch.org/eng/default.asp?page=home/welcome/site_resources.asp)</p>
<p>OK… have spent a few weeks working on this and am pretty excited about what I have found. Thanks to a lot of work by a relative on my dad’s side, we can trace relatives back to France in 1350!</p>
<p>But what I’m trying to figure out now is how to print stuff off. I’m leaving Wednesday to see some elderly aunts and would love to print off the work I’ve managed to get done on my mom’s side of the family. I tried printing pages, then cutting and taping pages together to make a tree, but it’s not going so well; for instance, my mom was one of 11 kids (although only 5 had children), but under that generation are many first cousins, and I can’t figure out how to set the settings so I can get them all on the same line. And under my generation are two more. </p>
<p>Any suggestions on how to print out my work so I can show it to my aunts. It would also be a resource to ask them for some of the missing information I have. Unfortunately, the one aunt I’m staying with does not have wireless internet in her apartment and is too frail to really go out anywhere, otherwise, I’d just show them my tree from the Ancestry site, itself.</p>
<p>Have you considered buying Family Tree Maker and importing the data into that? Then you don’t have to print, tape, etc and don’t have to worry about an internet connection. It’s around $30.</p>
<p>Hmmm… good idea, and I do have to go to the Apple Store tomorrow. Will ask them about it.</p>
<p>Look at Reunion as well…</p>
<p>Or just go to the Mormon site---familysearch.org., download the FREE PAF software and import your data into that. Then print out an Ahnentafel .</p>