Family Research

General Information

Ancestral Research in Germany

Read more about it at this site at Ancestral Research in Germany.

Armed conflicts in North America

A list of armed conflicts in North America you can get here.

Census in the USA

Federal censuses took place from the year 1790 on every ten years. There are some state census years between the Federal censuses. For a list of the data you can get with each census and more about the censuses see at this site Census in the USA.

Emigration: Ships

You want to know more about an ancestor emigrated by ship to Australia, Canada, the United States or another country ?
There is an excellent mailing list called The Ship's List.
Read more about Mailing Lists at this site at Online Sources: Mailing Lists.
Read more about The Ship's List (how to subscribe) at this site at Online Sources: The Ship's List.

Emigration: Castle Gardens & Ellis Island

You want to know more about Immigration and Naturalization through Castle Gardens and Ellis Island and where to find records ?
Read the article from Shirley Hornbeck at this site .

Epidemics in the USA

In case you ever wondered why a large number of your ancestors disappeared during a certain period in history, this might help. Epidemics have always had a great influence on people - and thus influencing, as well, the genealogists trying to trace them. Many cases of people disappearing from records can be traced to dying during an epidemic or moving away from the affected area. Some of the major epidemics in the United States are listed at this site.

The Family History Center

The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS church) runs the Family History Library (FHL) in Salt Lake City, Utah. The FHL has one of the most impressive collections of genealogical material in the world. Read more at this site.

FBI & Genealogy

You want to know what the FBI can do for your genealogical research ? Read more at this site.

Foreign Currency Exchange

You got the problem to pay an ammount in foreign currencies ? E.g. you want to send a check to Germany ?

USA

I read of a place in Washington D.C.: Ruesch International Financial Services 700 Eleventh Street, NW Washington, DC 20001-4507 First - you call 1-800-424-2923 (office hours 9 AM to 5PM ET) or their Boston office 617-482-8600. Ask for the International Division. State that you have a personal order, and specify the currency, amount, payee and any reference information that should appear on the bank draft. Reusch announces the current exchange rate for that currency, and quotes the amount in U.S. dollars, including a $3.00 service charge. You are given a confirmation or reference number. Send a check with that reference number to the above address. About one week later, the bank draft arrives in your mail. Then you can send it by mail. They consider themselves "world wide" with offices in the United States, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.

other countries

For more information about Ruesch, including a listing of all their offices around the world, look at: http://www.ruesch.com/

Genealogical Research in the National Archives

A series of three articles about the National Archives will help you to do your genealogical research there. Read more ...

Inflation Calculator

You want to find out what a sum of money in 1850 is worth in today's money? Try the Inflation Calculator at http://www.westegg.com/inflation/. This site has a form you fill out which adjusts any given amount of money for inflation, according to the Consumer Price Index, from 1800 to 1997.

Letters in German

You want to get records from Germany. Write your query in German ! Two form letters in German with an English explanation and some more information you will get at this site with Letters in German.

Lookups on books for free

Books We Own (BWO) is a list of people who have specific genealogy books that will do lookups for you for FREE. The URL is http://www.rootsweb.com/~bwo/index.html.

Medicial Terms

If you are uncertain about an archaic medical term guide your browser to http://www.gpiag-asthma.org/drpsmith/amt1.htm. Dr. Paul Smith has done an impressive job compliling the most comprehensive list of terms and their meaning.

Newspapers Online

You are looking for obits ? Check out this site for a listing of newspapers online: http://www.newslink.org/statnews.html.

The procedure for getting copies of parts of OSBs from the LDS FHL

The so called "Ortssippenbuch" (german - stands for: local family book) is an excellent source you shouldn't miss when you got german ancestors. They are held in original paper form in the LDS library. You find the book for the town your ancestor come from either on the LDS computer catalog or microfiche. This can be a problem if you haven't the first clue. I knew the name of the village where my grandfather was born. Next, you get a "Photoduplication Order" form from your LDS-FHC. There is a section for "Book or General Microform". Fill it out for the title and call-number of the OSB and indicate the SURNAME you are interested in. The form says "$2 per exposure" when you don't have specific page numbers, but I was not charged this for OSBs. Include a check $3-$5 and mail in. They did a very good job for me. When I got the pages back, I listed the allied surnames on the next request. It took just 3 requests to get all the data I needed.
[by Donald R. Newcomb - Jan 26, 1998, with the authors permission]

Maps

You are looking for a map to locate a town in Europe ?

General	http://www.mapquest.com
Germany in 1000 AD	http://www8.informatik.uni-erlangen.de/html/ wwp/deutschland1000.html
Maps of Central Europe (980AD-1871AD)	http://www.lib.utexas.edu/maps/historical/central_europe.html
Library of Congress Map Collections 1597-1988	http://lcweb2.loc.gov/ammem/gmdhtml/gmdhome.html

Dating old photos

More about Dating old photos you can read at at this site.

Protestant churches in Germany

A list of all protestant churches in Germany you get at http://www.ekd.de/english.html.

Return postage for other countries

You want to include return postage in a request you are sending e.g. to Germany (country doens't matter). You do not know the cost of stamp for a first class air mail letter from Germany to USA? You haven't got a german stamp?
Buy "International Reply Coupons" (I.R.C.) at your post office. They will tell you at your post office how much of that coupons you will need for a first class air mail letter. The recipient in Germany will get for these coupons the appropriate amount of stamps for his letter back to you.
One I.R.C is about 1 US$, other currencies I don't know about (yet).

Social Security

You can search the Social Security Death Index online at http://www.ancestry.com/ssdi/advanced.htm.

Get a copy of the original form filled in by your ancestor to get the Social Security Number ! Read more at this site at Social Security Records.

Soundex Code

The soundex code was used at some American census(es?). With the soundex code you will get a letter and tree digits. That code stands for a surname. This is really not bad: could you pronounce the german surname Kächele ? Could you write that surname if you just heard it ? Keckley ? Kackley ? In Soundex code Kächele is: K240.
There is an online converter at http://searches.rootsweb.ancestry.com/cgi-bin/Genea/soundex.sh.

Vital Statistics

You want to know where to write for birth, marriage and death certificates way before they were kept ? Look at this site for the addresses: Certificates in the USA. This page lists where to write in each state and the dates they started officially keeping these vital statistics.