CategoriesMoranPersonalTips & Tricks

East Coast Researchers

I’ve been doing a lot more research on the east coast states, mainly Virginia, Delaware (Hi, we’re in..Delaware), Maryland, etc and it’s not as easy as I had assumed it would be. I say this because I had assumed there were a lot more records since those states have been around the longest. I’ve been doing some more research for my fiancee’s tree (which will soon be merged with mine) and she has a lot of east coast ancestors. I have absolutely none, all of my ancestors either came straight to Wisconsin via foreign lands, or through Canada, eh? It’s very boring on this side, plus it’s not the easiet thing to find records for some of these other countries.

Does anyone have any tips on doing research (mainly online) for the east coast? I have yet to travel to our local Family History Center since it’s rarely open when I’m available. I do have nearly full-access to Ancestry.com.

CategoriesTips & Tricks

US Gen Web

If you’re stuck on an ancestor, try checking out the USGenWeb sites. I have found some very helpful information using these sites along with my other normal sites. Most of the time, they can give you very helpful information on a certain county. Some sites have tons of information available, and some don’t have much.

Anyway, what is it that some of these sites have some of the worst user interfaces ever, and some of them are gold mines? A lot of the county sites I’ve been to look like they haven’t been remodeled since the mid-1990s (and we all remember how good those sites were.) There are some good sites out there with very helpful user interfaces. I usually spend more time trying to figure out what’s what then I do finding anything useful. Now, I know that finding information isn’t always easy, even though I do find it frustrating that some sites just like everything back to Rootsweb or Ancestry. But, at least organize the information better. You’d think that being genealogists, we would have organization skills (though this is the pot calling the kettle black here.)

Though, like I said earlier, the majority of these sites are too helpful to pass up when you’re stuck or are looking for that one piece of info that could crack open your research. It’s probably just my web developing side ranting and raving about usability and design, but when I see flashing text and dancing, animated images I’m immediately pulled back into the darkness of mid-90s web designs. I’m tempted to volunteer for one, but all the ones in my area are taken and are down fairly well, such as the Ozaukee County site. But, I think the Milwaukee County site could use a nice overhaul. I know that there is a lot more information out there for that county.

Check them out, hopefully it will help you out.

CategoriesGenetic GenealogyLinksTips & Tricks

Interesting Links

Here are some interesting genealogy links for today. I’ll try to do this every few days.

Stay tuned for more interesting links!