From tracing ancestors on the move to understanding boundary changes to just becoming acquainted with the landscape of your ancestors' lives, maps are an incredibly important resource in your family history research. In this lecture, we will explore various ways in which maps can help broaden your genealogical horizons.
Before the Revolutionary War, geography, topography and a strong indigenous people presence shaped migration patterns. This lecture covers the dominant push-pull forces and challenges for colonial migration. Using maps and other graphics, the major migration routes by region will be described: New England, mid-Atlantic and southward from Virginia. Famous paths such as the Kings Highway, the Great Valley Road, and the Fall Line Road as well as less well-known paths such as the Greenwood Path and the Forbidden Path will be covered. Using a set of examples, the process of locating clues in local histories, land records, and maps will be discussed.
New York has been called “the first West for New England” because so many New Englanders settled there before continuing westward. Understanding patterns of settlement, expansion, and migration can help identify your ancestor’s deep New England roots. In this online lecture, we will discuss the historical context, records, and research strategies for tracing ancestors on the move in the Northeast.
For anyone with 17th-century New England colonists in their family tree, the Great Migration study project is a go-to resource. Created and researched by Robert Charles Anderson, FASG, the series provides authoritative genealogical and biographical sketches for more than 20,000 individuals who immigrated to New England between 1620 and 1635, and detailed references for many more who immigrated between 1635 to 1640. Many of these sketches are available as searchable databases on AmericanAncestors.org. Join us to learn more about these important resources and how best to search the databases.
When most family historians think about the census, we think of the population schedule—the enumeration of individuals living within a household. But there is so much more to the Federal Census that many researchers overlook! We will discuss how mortality, agriculture, manufacturing, business, and other social statistics schedules can be used in your genealogical research. We’ll review what data was collected for what years, how to access these non-population schedules, and how to leverage this information in your own family history.
Financial records can help fill in the timeline of your ancestor’s movements and explain motivations behind migrations. Deeds, pension, town, probate, tax, and employment records may exist when vital records do not. This class will demonstrate why financial records should be your go-to for tracing ancestors on the move, discuss what information is included in each, and where to find them.
Following the Acadian Expulsion from Nova Scotia, an estimated 2,000 families from New England settled Nova Scotia (and parts of what is today New Brunswick) between 1759 and 1768. Largely farmers and fishermen, these Planters marked the first large-scale migration of English-speaking settlers to Canada who had not come directly from England. This webinar will discuss the historical context of the migration and point you to several published and primary resources that can help you trace your New England Planter roots.
Throughout history, there are individuals who find it difficult to live within the rules of a society, often turning to criminal, illegal activities. While some criminals can skirt the law, more often they are caught, leaving a paper trail documenting their activities, whereabouts, and other valuable information that can be used in tracing family history. We will provide an overview of key resources that can be used to research the criminals in your own family tree, including newspapers, jail registers, prison records, court records, and more.
Today there are an estimated 7.6 million Jewish Americans living in the country, the majority of whom descend from diaspora Jewish populations from Central and Eastern Europe. Learning how to trace your Jewish ancestry is not without its challenges: changing surnames, locating your ancestor's home village or shtetl, and access to overseas records are just the tip of the iceberg. This webinar will discuss the historical context of your ancestor's arrival in the United States, review American records that can be helpful in your research, and provide basic strategies for uncovering your ancestor's exact origins in the old country.
City and rural directories can be incredibly useful resources for genealogists. They can help you pinpoint a time and place for ancestors on the move, offer occupational information, and even help give clues to death and marriage dates. You will learn how these resources were created, what information is generally provided, where to locate these sources online or in print, and how to use these records effectively in your family history research.
