Happy Birthday To You!

Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday To You, Happy Birthday Dear Footnote, Happy Birthday To You !

In this wondrous era of instant digital media, you have reached your majority. You are ONE YEAR OLD! Fantastic!

For what it is worth, after having spent many an hour hunched over with my head in the metal shroud of a Readex metal microfilm box, yours is a MUCH better approach, in my opinion.

Twenty years ago we could have never dreamed that what you are doing so rapidly would ever be done at any time. It was just unthinkable! You now have 25 Million original documents on-line, viewable, zoomable, downloadable, incredible!

Your new Search Engine, coupled with the brilliant viewer are just a wonder to behold. We can do so much more with these digitized images than we could ever do with the grainy, scratched, out of focus 8 1/2 X 11 inch photocopies that were made from microfilm, that it is just astounding!

To our readers of the Upstate New York Genealogy Blog, we recommend this company to the highest degree. Your subscriptions on Footnote do help to support this website, and not only will Footnote thank you for your business, you will have our heartfelt thanks also. Take a three day FREE test drive and see for yourself. When you do subscribe from this website it will not cost you a penny more, so thanks again.

Ps: Footnote, we LOVE your Small Town Newspapers Series!

Pps: Tell us what you think. Tell us about your good fortune on Footnote. What are your thoughts? Leave a comment by just clicking the comment tab below.



(unyg)

psst, wanna find a locality?

Do you use epodunk?

A funny name, but easy to remember, this is a fast website that will help you in your genealogical pursuit.

It appears as though this site was not designed for genealogy, but it sure is helpful for researching your family tree! Whenever a location comes across this desk at Upstate New York Genealogy, that is not familiar, one of the first places that we go to is epodunk.

Well you might say that "this is just a commercial site for modern times," well then you have not yet taken advantage of some of the unique features that epodunk has to offer.

For instance, on the top right is a search box to enter a locality. Just type in a name of a town, city, village, or whatever, and then select the state. Now here is a special feature that is very helpful to Genealogaholics, click on the box that says "Add Former Names" and you will be amazed at how much information can be discovered so quickly.

If you only have a former name of a locality, then put that in the search box and epodunk will return the modern day location name.

So you get the page of info, what next? Well there is usually a representative image, often from an old postcard, of the community. You will immediately see a description of the location, be it a hamlet, village, town, city, etc. One of the most helpful things that you will immediately see is that the county is named!

You will get the latitude and longitude, the time zone, and the altitude. Then over on the left you will find items of interest like, ancestry, attractions, cemeteries, courts, historical societies, libraries, maps, obituaries, photos, postcards, and a whole lot more.

Scroll down and there will be a current version of a Google Map that you can pan and zoom, and also look at the area in map, satellite image, or hybrid modes.

There are a ton more features and we would like to hear from you as to how epodunk has helped you. As always, we want to hear from you about anything, so please add your comments at the bottom of this Blog.

Featured site: www.epodunk.com



(unyg)

New Feature of Upstate New York Genealogy Blog

Regular readers will note the new addition to this Blog.

You may now subscribe to the unyg Blog by just inserting your email address in the box at the left.

Then every time a new Blog is added you will receive a copy of it in your email folder. As with all types of broadcast emails, you may have to go into your security settings and allow them to get past your spam filter.

Every system is different and I am not able to advise you on how to do this on your particular machine. If it is important to you I am sure you will figure out how to do it.

For those of you who have written to say that your RSS reader was not able to accept this feed then this is an alternative.

(unyg)

New place to search for Blogs by geographic location

Do you want to look at a Blog that might relate to a specific geographic location?

There is a brand new website that is designed to do just that. If you are a well known Blogger, a closet Blogger or wanna be Blogger, than you might want to register your Blog by name and the locality that you write about or publish from.

This site shows a world map with tags on it for all of the Blogs registered. You can them zoom in, pan to the location of interest and see if anyone Blogs from that area. There is also a search bar where you can search by an address or general locality, or Blog name.

I registered both Upstate New York Genealogy Blog and Genealogy Miscellanea, and it is kind of cool! Thought you readers might find it useful.

www.blewspace.com

(It is still in beta, and there are only a few hundred Blogs registered, but growing fast!.)

A new wiki for Native American and other Indigenous People

A new wiki for Native American and other indigenous people needs your input.

Read the full story at Genealogy Miscellanea.

(unyg)

William Dollarhide's "Census Substitutes & State Census Records," Reviewed.

Let’s go out on a limb here. As a serious genealogist and researcher for a great many years, I would venture to say that over half of the genealogists that do American Family History Research, do not take FULL advantage of ALL of the various State Censuses and Substitutes that are available.

That being said, let’s ask why not?
The simple answer is that until now researchers have never had one place to search in order to determine just what might be available for the area and the time period that they are studying.

Well that has all changed! William Dollarhide, friend of all genealogists, has compiled another excellent research tool!

“Census Substitute & State Census Records…” Volume 1 – Eastern States and Volume 2 – Western States, 2008, with Foreword by Leland K. Meitzler.

The Chapters are arranged by regions, such as for Volume 1; The Old Southwest, New England, Mid-Atlantic States, The Old South, The Old Northwest, The Central Plains. Volume 2 contains; Texas & Oklahoma, California & Nevada; Alaska & Hawaii, Nuevo Mexico, The Mountain West, and the Oregon Country.

At the start of each chapter there is a chronology of historical events and then there is an explanation of the particular Census Substitute or State Census that was created at that time. This is very beneficial to put you in the right frame of mind to think about “Gee, I wonder how this affected my ancestors, and I wonder if I might find them in this list?”

There are too many to count, but I would guess that there are thousands of places listed here that you have never heard of or would have ever thought to look for. There are source citations for each entry giving usually the Family History Library catalog number, or other location where these items will be located.

A suggestion to the beginning genealogists, “USE THIS BOOK!” A suggestion to the veteran researcher, “Go back over everything that you have done to date, and then USE THIS BOOK!” You are going to be amazed at what you missed. If you have been gathering just what was available on the U.S. Federal Censuses every ten years, you have missed mountains of evidence!


Of particular interest to Upstate New York Genealogy researchers is Leland Meitzler’s poignant discussion in the Foreword regarding New York State politics and greed surrounding the 1925 New York State Census.


Mr. Dollarhide has authored several other excellent research tools such as; “Map Guide to the U.S. Federal Census,” “Map Guide to American Migration Routes,” and several others, of which his “New York State Censuses & Substitutes” was reviewed on our website and Blog at www.unyg.com and given Five Stars!

William Dollarhide, “Census Substitute & State Census Records, An Annotated Bibliography of Published Name Lists for all 50 U.S. States and State Censuses for 37 States,” Volume 1 – Eastern States and Volume 2 – Western States, 2008, Published by Family Roots Publishing Company of Bountiful, Utah, with Foreword by Leland K. Meitzler. www.familyrootspublishing.com

Thank you Bill Dollarhide, from Upstate New York Genealogy – www.unyg.com

Palatine DNA Project Announced

A brand new website announces a brand new project to attempt to connect relatives of a very old immigrant group.

Family Tree DNA is a well known genetic testing company and they have just announced that there will be a mass effort to collect DNA samples and analyze them to provide test results to show relationships to the 1710 Palatine German migration groups that were split up and sent to various English colonies.

Henry Z. Jones (Hank) has presented an enormous amount of genealogical evidence through his famous books on The Palatine Germans of New York, as well as his work on the group of Palatines that were sent to Ireland, with some of those later also coming to America.

Doris Wheeler, Palatine DNA Project administrator, is the contact person for the Palatine DNA Project and her contact information may be found on the website at:
http://www.ftdna.com/public/PalatineDNAProject/

A full explanation of how the testing will be done and the comparisons are made are quite well defined on the website. Upstate New York is heavily populated by descendants of this some 847 family groups that came to the Hudson River Valley in 1710.

Quoted in part from a public announcement on a mail list: "Not only can participants learn about their connections to Germany but they will also learn about their very deep roots, the path their ancestors took out of Africa many thousands of years ago that led them eventually to Germany."

If any of you readers wish to participate in this study please check the website out fully as there are a lot of questions and answers presented to help you understand this project.

Please direct all of your personal questions to Doris Wheeler, and as always your comments are very welcome here on this Blog by clicking on the word "comments" at the bottom of this Upstate New York Genealogy Blog message and posting your thoughts.

(unyg)

Finding Sources of Good Used Books.

Sources of Genealogical Research Books.

So you've been doing the bulk of your genealogical research on-line now right?

You have ready access to images and indexes of census returns, historical documents, maps, huge databases of linked individuals and enough digitized bits and bytes to choke a USB port.

Well don't forget the OLD methods of research.
There are still a lot of treasures to be dug out of BOOKS! You remember books right?

Some of the best finds that this writer has made through the years is by haunting the lawn and garage sales, thrift stores, used book stores, and the book sales of libraries and historical societies. It's a win-win situation. The seller is getting rid of items that they no longer need or have a use for, and the buyer gets to rescue a treasure trove of information. They make a little money for the treasury and you have a new friend to explore.

Re-cycling is not only the key here, the fact is, that some of these books were printed in very small quantities and may be considered rare! That does not mean they are necessarily worth a fortune, just that they are hard to come by. Last summer at a genealogical society sale for about $20, I found a set of the Centennial Directory of Patriot Ancestors published by the DAR. OK, so there is a new volume out, but that does not mean all of the information in the previous edition is obsolete.

In Saratoga at the library book sale last year I bought for two dollars, a copy of Guzik's masterpiece on researching in the New York City areas.

Once at a house sale a friend of mine purchased a copy of Smith's Syracuse and It's Surroundings for $35. That book is SO RARE! It was only printed in 200 copies and had actual stereoscopic photo images in it of the 1870's in Syracuse, NY. This book has a fold out viewer built into the binding so that you can see the images in 3-D, and it now sells in the multi-thousands of dollars, if you can ever find one that is. Oh yes, my good buddy Charlie said, "You will appreciate this more than me, give me the thirty five bucks."

If you have been a regular reader of this Blog or of the unyg website, you will remember that we have promoted various companies where you may find used historical and genealogical reference books that are available for sale. A couple of these vendors are now advertisers on our websites, those being ABEbooks.com and Amazon.com. You can have confidence in these companies, however do not overlook the chances of finding some goodies on ebay, cragislist, Barnes and Noble, Sam Weller Books, and many other fine companies, oh and ask at your favorite library when their annual sale is going to be.

Here in Upstate New York we have had a spring thaw recently, but there is plenty of winter still to come, so pull a tome off the shelf and enjoy. Some of my best friends are books.

(unyg)