THE RESEARCHER'S SOURCE

STATE SEARCHABLE DATABASES AIDS ROOTERS

by: DONNA MURRAY ALLEN

One of the greatest advances in genealogical resources is the growing willingness of individual state archives to digitize some of their records and place them online in a searchable database. Today's column features a random selection of these sites.

If yours isn't included, make a point to check out the archive Web site of the states in which you're researching to see what's available online and onsite. Some states keep records at a state library instead of a traditional state archive. Others maintain both an archive and a state library, so it's wise to check for both. (See http://www. nagara.org/websites.html for an overview.)

I checked out the Idaho Library and State Archives primarily because I seldom write about Idaho. Its site at

http://www.idahohistory.net contains two searchable databases. One is an index of Confederate veterans that lists the name, birth, death, residence and the state in which the veteran served. Like their Union counterparts, Confederate veterans often migrated westward.

The other index is called the Mothers Pension Index. In 1913, Idaho awarded pensions to mothers and orphans under certain circumstances: for example, if the husband was dead, in jail or insane. The index gives the name of the recipient and the relationship to the guardian. The backup paperwork is chock-full of genealogical information and can be ordered for a fee from the archives. The Idaho archives staff accepts research requests by snail mail, e-mail and phone, services that have fallen by the wayside at many repositories.

On the Oklahoma State Archives site at http://www.odl.state.ok.us/

oar/resources/genealogy.htm you'll find an online index to that state's Confederate pension records.

Across the country, the Pennsylvania Archives features copies of 600,000 records online at http://www.digitalarchives.state.pa.us . ARIAS - Archives Records Information Access System - which focuses on military records. The information, arranged in alpha order, generally includes the soldier's name, military unit, age at enrollment, description (complexion, height, color of hair and eyes), residence and birthplace. The following records are available:

Civil War Veterans' Card File (1861-1866)

Revolutionary War Military Abstract Card File

World War I Service Medal Application Cards

Spanish American War Veterans' Card File of United States Volunteers

Mexican Border Campaign Veterans' Card File

Militia Officers Index Cards, 1775-1800

The Maryland State Archives at http://www.mdarchives.state.md.us recently uploaded a death index for 23 counties that spans 1898 to 1944. Scanned copies of microfilmed death index cards provide such information as the name, age, race and death date. Clicking randomly, I lighted on the data for a man named Pearson Mathews, age 64, who died on May 25, 1909, in Cecil County.

You can print out a copy of the card. If you want a copy of the death certificate, send the copy of the card and $12 to the archives. It takes about two weeks. This is the first time in several years that the Maryland State Archives has made it possible to order any records by snail mail.

For a convenient listing of searchable online resources at state archives and elsewhere, log on to http://home.att.net/

wee-monster/deathrecords.html. Additional sites are similar, but this one lists states in alphabetical order and includes links to related searchable databases.

Like microfilmed records, searchable databases are sometimes incomplete. Items get lost in transcription. If you can't find who you're looking for on either resource, ask a clerk to check the original records. I knew the death date for Jeremiah Mills, for example, but could not find a death certificate on the microfilmed records. An archive librarian located the certificate in the original files. Likewise, I knew that Hiram Murray was killed in the Civil War. None of the pertinent searchable databases at that time included his name. Once I acquired documentation, I notified the appropriate Web sites, asking them to add his name, which they did. Both records had simply been missed in the transcription process.

Read past Donna Murray Allen columns online at http://www.sptimes.com . Type "Donna Murray Allen" in the search box.

You can write to Allen c/o Floridian, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail her at rootscolumn@yahoo.com.

Her Web site: http://www.rootsdetective.comincludes information on classes and lectures.

PENNSYLVANIA GENEALOGICAL RESOURCES

by: James M. Beidler

Pennsylvania's original land records are a rich genealogical resource.

While nearly every researcher is familiar with the deeds found in each county's Recorder of Deeds office, not nearly as many have used the documents housed at the Pennsylvania State Archives that give the details on a piece of land's first sale from Pennsylvania.

A warrant is the first step in the state land process, resulting from the purchaser's application for a quantity of land [usually expressed in rough terms at this stage -- 100 acres or 250 acres, etc.].

After being granted a warrant, the purchaser then proceeded to have the land surveyed --meaning that a drawing was made showing the boundary lines, corners and adjoining landowners of the property as well as the lengths and angles of each boundary line. Many of the written descriptions of the surveys use such interesting landmarks such as stones, black oak trees or posts.

After the land was surveyed, the buyer paid the appropriate fees and the purchase price of the land, and had a patent for the property recorded with the state. It was with this patent [essentially, an "original deed"] that clear title passed from the state to private ownership.

There needs to be a comment made on theory vs. reality. The theory is that the first settler on a piece of property in Pennsylvania would secure title to the property by going through the process detailed above, and that succeeding transactions then took place on the county level.

But as is true in so many cases, theory does not always match reality. For one thing, many of these settlers were "squatters" on the land for some time before applying for a warrant. Many of those who intended to title land did not complete the process, leading to a few [or several or many] deeds to be recorded on the county level before a different person [sometimes decades later] completed the state process and gained clear title with the patent.

In the Colonial period, during which Pennsylvania was the property of the Penn family, attempts to make the most money from land sales led to many special programs for distributing warrants.

For all the details on the entire land process, the seminal source is Pennsylvania Land Records by Donna Bingham Munger ["Scholarly Resources of Wilmington, Del.," $29.99 softbound]. More information is also available on the Pennsylvania State Archives Web site in the description of Record Group 17 at the URL, www.phmc.state.pa.us/bah/dam/rg/rg17.htm.

Access to the original land records is easiest if the name of the warrantee is known, since then the warrant registers can be used.

These registers are set up by counties --meaning the county in which the land was located at the time of the warrant, which may be radically different than in the modern-day. For instance, land now in Blair County could show up in the warrant registers for Cumberland, Bedford or Huntingdon counties; likewise, present-day Lebanon County tracts can be found in the registers from Lancaster and Dauphin.

The warrant registers then give a lot of information --including references to where a survey can be found, the name of the tract's patentee, and the book reference to the patent.

In addition to the State Archives, microfilm copies of the warrant registers [as well as microfilms of the warrants, survey books and patents] are available at the Blair County Genealogical Society, 431 Scotch Valley Road, Hollidaysburg, PA. 16648; phone [814] 696-3492; Web site at the URL, www.rootsweb.com/[tilde]pabcgs/pub.html < ">http://www.rootsweb.com/[tilde]pabcgs/pub.html>

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Beidler is a freelance writer and lecturer on genealogy. Contact him either at Box 270, Lebanon, PA 17042 or by e-mail to james@beidler.us.

PROQUEST

ProQuest Information and Learning and MyFamily.com have partnered to produce Ancestry Library Edition, a new genealogy tool that will replace the current library product offering, AncestryPlus. The interface will have a cleaner look with more user-friendly search options and will feature key genealogical resources not previously available electronically, such as the Immigration Collection, which features New York and San Francisco passenger lists, and the New York Petitions for Naturalization Index [800/521-0600; 734/761-4700; www.il.proquest.com].

HOW TO BEGIN YOUR GENEALOGICAL RESEARCH

How to Begin

To trace your family history, begin with yourself and work backward, one step at a time.

Carefully record the important facts of your own life and what you know of your parents and grandparents.

Consult other members of your family and close family friends and collect the information they know or have gathered. You may find that a family member has saved family papers, newspaper clippings, obituaries, family Bibles, or other treasures.

Compile a genealogical chart showing the names of your immediate ancestors with their birth, marriage, and death dates, and the places where each event occurred.

Check for books on local and family history. Go to a local library, courthouse, state archives, or to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington, D.C. You must search for original records to document the history you have heard from relatives or the claims you have found in published genealogies.

Always record the source of any information found.

FREE SEARCH OPTIONS

Free services include:

More than 300 government and public Web sites listed at Docusearch.com and Searchsystems.net. Many for-fee people locators merely give you links like this while promising much more.

Respected search engine companies that provide people-locating tools. Try the new Lycos People Search page (www.whowhere.lycos.com) or the Infospace White Pages (www.infospace.com/wp).

Genealogy sites, which are often information gold mines. Some people-finding services charge you to search Social Security death records, for example. At RootsWeb.com, more than 72 million Social Security death records are available for free queries at http://ssdi.rootsweb.com/.

Unclaimed property Web sites listed by the National Association of Unclaimed Property (www.naupa.org). These include links to state government sites.

Before you pay for a people locator service:

Make sure there is a working telephone number for handling billing complaints.

Check the service’s reputation at consumer Web sites such as the Ripoff Report (http://www.ripoffreport.com/).

Beware of sites that charge a membership fee, then seek hefty charges for “premium” searches.

Look for discussions of other people’s experiences on http://groups.google.com/. Irate consumers often relay negative experiences in groups such as alt.consumers.experiences on Google Groups.

Don’t bite on unsolicited pitches arriving via e-mail. If it arrives in spam, it is most likely a scam.