The Cook Memorial Library Genealogy Networking group met for their monthly meeting on Thursday, August 6 in the library’s meeting room. Although the meeting’s topic was Bring in Your Brickwalls, our discussion ranged broadly and several members had great stories to share. Last March, Karen participated in a six-day Road Scholar program at the Family…
It's happy days for those with Irish ancestors, including our own Ellen Jennings. On July 8, Ellen and others of Irish ancestry went to the National Library of Ireland's website as they released all the Catholic parish records online---and for free! Until now, it required a bishop's permission to view these records and you had to view them…
At a recent meeting of the Lake County (IL) Genealogical Society, Jeanne Larzalere Bloom gave a fantastic talk about passenger lists. There's a lot more to them than just finding your ancestor's name and date of entry into the United States. I can't reproduce her entire talk, but here are a few tidbits that are…
Last week I watched a webinar called "The Secret Lives of Women: Researching Female Ancestors" presented at the Legacy Family Tree website. Speaker Gina Philibert-Ortega gave many helpful ideas for researching one's female ancestor, or, "ancestress," to use her term. This webinar is available for free only until July 8 so I highly recommend watching…
A free workshop on using and interpreting maps for genealogy research is offered by the Burlington County Genealogy Society of Burlington, Wisconsin on Wednesday, May 20, 2015 at 7 p.m. in Burlington, Wisconsin. The public is invited to attend this educational workshop. The presentation, “Using Maps in Genealogy,” will explore how lands are described,…
Cook Library has two databases you can use to find Chicago obituaries. Patrons most often use the Chicago Tribune Historical Database for Chicago research. The less frequently used is called Chicago Tribune Historical Archive but it's one you don't want to overlook. Here's why: Chicago Tribune Historical Archive has access to 2.5 million obituaries and death notices.…
For all you family history writers out there: the Allen County Public Library in Ft. Wayne, Indiana, will happily accept a copy of your self-written family history or genealogy. Through their Photocopy Exchange Program, you can donate a copy of your writing to them, which they will bind and add to their collection at their…
A piece of advice from the collective wisdom of genealogy: Go back and search again. The larger databases like Ancestry.com and FamilySearch are continually adding new material to their sites, so if you don't go back and search them from time to time, you could miss out on a big find. Case in point. I…
Genealogist Dan Niemiec recently gave us some good hints on how to research Italian ancestors. I do not have any Italian ancestors so I learned a lot about Italian records.However, some things are the same no matter what your ethnic background. First, do your research in the United States. Second, you must know the immigrant…
At a recent meeting of the Lake County (IL) Genealogical Society we heard Teresa Steinkamp McMillin talk about finding your ancestor's town of origin. She called this "the holy grail of genealogical research," because once you find that, you can research your family in their homeland, across the ocean.But how to find the town of…
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