Genealogy Online for Dummies

A couple of weeks ago, I bought Genealogy Online for Dummies. I love the Dummies books, because they are usually chockful of good information and this one was no disapointment. It has references to tons of potentially useful websites. I haven't started visiting most them yet, because I've been too busy with other forms of research and with working on the website.

But here are some of the sites I've highlighted as being potentially interesting:

www.immigrantships.net - passenger list transcriptions organized by date, ship's name, port of departure, port of arrival, passenger's surname, and captain's name. Searchable.

www.usigs.org/library/military/links/ - has links to other sites that contain military records.

www.archives.gov/research_room/alic/reference_desk/native_american_links.html - information about American Indian resources available from the National Archives and Records administration

www.genealogy.net/gene/genealogy.html - German genealogy pages

www.scotlandspeople.gov.uk - the General Register Office for Scotland, which features searchable indexes of births/baptisms and banns/marriages from Old Parish registers dating from 1553 to 1854

There are a lot more, but these are the ones that I want to try first.

A Genealogy-Related Christmas Present

For a couple of years, I've put the word out that I would like to have a copy of Murray County Heritage as a Christmas present. No one took the bait, so my parents got me a copy this year. This book was compiled by the Murray County History Committee of the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society in 1987. I was pleased to see that it is now in its sixth printing.

As with most county histories, this book includes narratives related to the towns and communities within the county, family histories, and other narratives of interest. It also includes a number of appendices including the 1834 Georgia census, land lottery records, federal census records, Civil War militia, Civil War soldiers (including references to the various companies), slave schedules, and more.

I have to say, compared to some other county histories that I have seen, this one is well organized and a very good source of information. I can't wait to start reading. If you are interested in a copy of your own, contact the Whitfield-Murray Historical Society.