Free access to old newspapers

I've recently been enjoying the free newspapers at Fulton NY Postcards (don't let their website name fool you). They have tons of old New York newspapers scanned and available for browsing or searching. This includes papers from Glens Falls, New York. I even found some need obituaries from other areas of New York too.

I was particularly taken by this gem that I found about my second great-grandfather, Deranzel Henry, who rescued a drowning boy in the Battenkill River.



Since I'm writting about free access, Footnote is giving free access to their newspaper collection this month, so make sure to go do some searches before May is over.

Vermont Vital Records coming to Ancestry

In my last post when I was discussing the New Hampshire vital records project (which the births are now indexed and online on Family Search), I mentioned that I was hoping for Vermont to be next.

Well, although it's not free for all on Family Search, I did receive a promotional email from Ancestry.com stating that Vermont vital records were coming soon. I'm excited that this great resource will soon be available. Horray!

In the meantime, did you know that the Vermont State Archives are willing to look up a record for you for free? Click here and then chose the Informational Copies link on the right to download a form to fill out and email back.

They've often emailed the record back within a week of my requesting it. Kudos to Vermont! I wish more states were as kind to genealogists as you are.

Family Search indexing-NH births

I have to admit I'm a bit excited. FamilySearch's indexing project has started working on NH births up to 1900. I like that I can work on a project like this that will help so many and that this is not a database that is repeated over and over on the Internet. I've refused to index the federal census records for exactly that reason. I want to work on the projects that will provide new information for people.

New indexers are always welcome. It's an easy way to give back to the genealogy community. Please see FamilySearchIndexing find out more.

So, as I happy work away trying to get these records indexed, I have to admit that I'm hoping that they'll do Vermont next, or maybe New York. :-)

Druin collection now indexed! Hooray!

Ancestry announced yesterday that their Druin collection in their World subscription is now INDEX! I am so excited. I sat down last night and found baptism and burial dates for a number of my husband's ancestors.

The Druin collection is Canadian church records from 1850 to 1967. I had mentioned a while back that I had been browsing through parishes to find all the children and such. The problem with browsing that if they moved, you don't always know what parish to look through. Now with the index, that is greatly simplified.

It's a great day for Canadian researchers!

Ancestry Drouin collection

Have you indexed today?

Most of us wish that there were more records online for free. Would you be willing to help out in hopes that you get back?

FamilySearch is seeking volunteers to help them index records. You sign up at http://www.familysearchindexing.org, download a little program and you're in business! When you run the program, you download from various projects that they are working on (always your choice of which one you want to do). Then, the original record is displayed on your screen while you type the data into a spreadsheet that is also on the screen. It's pretty easy, well, easy if the writing is readible. If a page is too difficult to read, you can reject it and get a different page that you can read, either in the same project or a different one.

Imagine the difference that could be made if we all indexed just one page a day. Please consider being a part of this great project.

Oh, and by the way, yes I indexed today!