Genealogy Search Engines
There are several large subscription (fee) sites on the World Wide Web now
with good, useable data abstractions. I personally use the Ancestry.com and GenealogyLibrary.com
subscription sites. The census indexes for AIS (Accelerated Indexing Systems, Inc.)
for 1850-1880 are available for most states on Ancestry.com. If you find a U.S.
Federal Census record you want on Ancestry.com, send me
your name, address, the state, the county and the page number and I'll copy and send
the record to you for $8.25 (includes postage and handling).
My Favorite Search Engines
Primary vs. Secondary Source Material
A Very Basic Introduction . . .
Primary source material is information that is gleaned "straight from
the horse's mouth" (so to speak). It is abstracted from a vital record, court
record, deed or other original record and contains the first recording of an event.
These records are usually created very near to the actual time of the event by someone who
was actually present or who was directly involved in the event. An autobiography is
also a type of historical primary source document.
Secondary source material can often be viewed a bit like
"gossip." Secondary source material is often recorded long after the event
has occurred and almost always by someone not really associated with the event.
Most of the GEDCOM type, undocumented family groups and ancestries placed on CD-Rom
format by software companies are types secondary source information.
You might want to take some time to familiarize yourself with
some of the
conventional methods for citing electronic source material that you pull down for your
family research projects from www sites. Also, with the help of Dennis Karjala,
Professor of Law, I have compiled a rather detailed
copyright table to assist you in
evaluating current copyright laws. It is important that you try to document
everything very carefully in your notes. Documentation only takes a minute and will
keep you from wondering several months from now where you originally found your
information. Good luck to you! If you need help with your ancestry, feel free
to contact me.
06 Apr 2009