Family History & Genealogy

Ancestral chart, research calendar, family group sheet, source summary. Forms you will need to do your research!

Free family history research advice for the community, by the community

One of the many collections in Ancestry.com is the U.S. Census of Population (manuscript version with peoples' names). It has been digitized and is available via Ancestry.com/Ancestry Library Edition.

Click on a Census year to find resources to search for individuals. They recommend that you begin with the most current census and work backwards as a strategy for locating people in earlier generations.

Includes reports from every Census from 1790-2010.

The National Archives has immigration records for arrivals to the United States from foreign ports between approximately 1820 and 1982. The records are arranged by Port of Arrival and many of them have been digitized.

New York (Ellis Island) immigration records 1892-1924.

Indexes to many ships' lists.

Now members of AmericanAncestors.org can search the largest online database of authenticated Mayflower passenger genealogies to discover and research their Mayflower ancestry! The Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880 database features more than half a million searchable names.

Print: Reference CS 49 .D65 2000

Print: Tisch Book Stacks: HA 37.U55 C66 2000

Print: Reference: CS 49 .S984 2001

This site contains tools for finding immigration records, census records, vital records, and for dealing with calendars, maps, foreign alphabets, and numerous other applications. Some of these tools fetch data from other websites but do so in more versatile ways than the search tools provided on those websites.

From Genealogy Magazine, this site offers five free productivity tools that will make you a better genealogist.

From the New York Public Library, Milstein Division of United States History, Local History and Genealogy, includes sections that address: Where Do I Start?; What Questions Do I Ask?; and Interviewing Guides.

Including examples of simple written permission slips

From Ancestry.com's blog

This checklist is a list of possible items in the home that can provide valuable genealogical information.

Southern plantation records document the far-reaching impact of plantations on both the American South and the nation. Plantation records are both business records and personal papers because the plantation was both the business and the home for plantation owners.

"This site is devoted to pointing out the many places that affected the newly freed survivors of slavery. The sites where Freedman’s Bureau offices were located are marked for you. In addition other institutions that served former slaves, are marked – the branches of the Freedman’s Savings Bank, Freedmen Schools, contraband camps, and even the location of battle sites where men who were in the US Colored Troops fought."

The Valley project details life in two American communities, one Northern and one Southern, from John Brown's raid through the era of Reconstruction.

The Bureau of Refugees, Freedmen, and Abandoned Lands...
...often referred to as the Freedmen's Bureau, was established in the War Department by an act of March 3, 1865. The Bureau supervised all relief and educational activities relating to refugees and freedmen, including issuing rations, clothing and medicine. The Bureau also assumed custody of confiscated lands or property in the former Confederate States, border states, District of Columbia, and Indian Territory. The bureau records were created or maintained by bureau headquarters, the assistant commissioners and the state superintendents of education and included personnel records and a variety of standard reports concerning bureau programs and conditions in the states.

Even though this describes records at the National Archives, it discusses the importance and use of the Freedmen's Bureau records, listed above.

This database is the latest step by the Virginia Historical Society to increase access to its varied collections relating to Virginians of African descent. Since its founding in 1831, the VHS has collected unpublished manuscripts, a collection that now numbers more than 8 million processed items.

Virginia Memory is part of the online presence of the Library of Virginia, the state archives and reference library. The Library maintains vast and varied collections of print materials, manuscripts, archival records, newspapers, photographs and ephemera, maps and atlases, rare books, and fine art that tell the history of the commonwealth and its people.

From the Virginia Foundation for the Humanities

5th edition. Ref F 3 .G488 2012

Print: 4th edition Ref CS 47 .H36 2017
Main guide for American Genealogy research!

Print: Ref CS 49 .S322 1999

Print: Ref CS 49 .C384 2000

Print: Tisch Book Stacks E 185.96 .S6514 2008

Print: Ref E 185.96 .B94 2001