Featured Database: Letters of 1916

Yesterday I found this very interesting website called Letters of 1916. 

It is a crowd-sourced digital collection of letters written around the time of the Easter Rising in Ireland.

The dates the website has covered are November 1915 to November 1916.  

Most of my readers know how much I love these old letters! If you haven't been to my site called Past Voices: Letters Home, please do take a minute to have a look. Old letters and photographs are my passion and I am always looking for more to share with you.

Featured Database: Ticehurst House Hospital Insane Asylum Records

The archives of the Ticehurst House Hospital, which are part of the Wellcome collection, have been preserved and its records from 1787 to 1925 have now been digitized and put online. These records provide a glimpse into life in an Insane Asylum.

Ticehurst House Hospital was opened as a private lunatic asylum at Ticehurst, East Sussex, in 1792. At first the hospital admitted a number of pauper patients as well as its more numerous private clients. However no pauper patients were admitted after 1838, and the clientèle became increasingly upper class as the century progressed. 

In the 19th century and earlier, people were often committed to Insane Asylums by a family member who had grown tired of them. Aging parents could be sent away by resentful adult children; wives discarded by a husband who wanted a change, a well-off auntie whose scheming nephew wanted money - these were often patients.

The horror stories abound. Treatment was often cruel and neglectful. Little was understood about true mental illness so even those truly suffering from some type of illness were not helped by the treatments of the time.

Male doctors were in charge and women suffered terribly in this male dominated world. Patients could be chained to the walls, they could be dipped in icy water. Straightjackets and solitary confinement were commonplace for those who could not or would not keep quiet.

My Experiences in a Lunatic Asylum written by Herman Charles Merivale and published in 1879 was written by a former inmate of an Insane Asylum. It is free to read on Project Gutenberg.

Featured: California Digital Newspaper Collection

The California Digital Newspaper Collection contains 76,996 issues comprising 659,335 pages and 7,463,349 articles. It is free to search and consists of newspapers from 1846 to the present day.

The California Digital Newspaper Collection is a project of the Center for Bibliographical Studies and Research (CBSR) at the University of California, Riverside.

Search the California Digital Newspaper Collection.

Got New Orleans Ancestors? Don't Miss These Online Records

1801 Letter

The University of Notre Dame has the following searchable records online for the Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas (later known as the Diocese of New Orleans) : Diocese of Louisiana and the Floridas 1576-1803

Anyone using this database should be careful not to overlook the very detailed explanation of what each roll of microfilm contains.  There is also an interesting history of the Diocese provided.

One of the records I found consists of dozen of pages along with an English translation. They appear as thumbnail images which can be clicked on to view the original.

On the right is the start of the results for the record I found for the clandestine marriage in Ovachita of D'Anemours and Lucila Withe (Lucille White).

Even though they are not my ancestors it is fascinating reading! 

Featured Database Brixham Devon Church Records

This is a very location specific database but if, like me, you have ancestors from Brixham Devon, you will be thrilled that it's online and free. My Brixham ancestors go way back to the late 1500s so this free set of records for St. Mary's Church in Brixham is a wonderful asset.


In case anyone else has Brixham Devonshire ancestors, here is my list of surnames from this area: 

Moses, Hooper, Petherbridge/Pethebridge, Helling, Martin, Lelton, Downing, Moxey,  Skynner/Skinner, Cundett, Lucas, Nowell, Harvey, Joll, Prowse, Norman, Williams, Doust, Cole, Burd, Lambshead/Lamsed, Pearse/Pierce. My ancestors were living there before 1850.
 
Follow the links below to search for ancestors in transcriptions of the Parish registers by Judith Smith and Marie Simkus, provided by the Brixham Heritage Museum:

Baptisms 1575-1631 Baptisms 1587-1646 Baptisms 1651-1698 Baptisms 1698-1739 Baptisms 1739-1765

Marriage Banns 1653-1662 Marriages 1556-1631 Marriages 1631-1646 Marriages 1653-1669 Marriages 1699-1742

Burials 1560-1631 Burials 1631-1647 Burials 1654-1697 Burials 1698-1738 Burials in Wool 1692-1730

Featured Database: Irish Emigration Database (IED)

If you have Irish ancestors this is a great database to check out. Irish Emigration Database (IED) is a free searchable set of records from various sources. The list of documents in this database are

  Diaries and Journals Family Papers Folklore, Song, Music Hansard Letters (Emigrants) Letters (Other) Newspapers (Births, Deaths, Marriages) Newspapers (Extracts) Newspapers (Shipping Advertisements) Newspapers (Shipping News) Official Documents Periodical Extracts Statistics Wills

Searching for various names and topics resulted in dozens of fascinating newspaper accounts, letters and diaries. 

Irish Passengers in J & J Cooke Shipping Agents Records 1847-1871

Those of us with Irish ancestors know how difficult and challenging it can be to find records. One set of records that is often overlooked is the J & J Cooke Shipping Agents Records. 

Ships passenger lists to Canada did not have to be kept before 1865 and the J J Cooke Shipping Agent records are a substitute that is often overlooked. It also includes ports of arrival in America

These Irish passenger lists from shipping records can be found in  Passenger Books of J & J Cooke, Shipping Agents. Sailings from Londonderry to Philadelphia Pennsylvania, Quebec, St. John New Brunswick & New Orleans Louisiana, 1847-1871

This database of Irish ships passenger lists include 27 ships to St. John New Brunswick, 30 to Pennsylvania, 23 to Quebec and 5 to New Orleans, Louisiana. If your Irish ancestor left Ireland for N. America between 1847 and 1871 you won't want to overlook these lists of passengers.

Fabulous Find: A Manx Notebook

View from Falcon Cliff, Isle of Man

A Manx Notebook is my latest genealogy find. It would be listed under Featured Database but it's so eclectic that instead I'm creating a new topic for my Olive Tree Genealogy blog called Fabulous Finds.

Anyone with ancestors from the Isle of Man will want to visit this site. I have spent the last two days poring over the vast wealth of material found on its pages and I'm still making discoveries.

Francis Coakley is the person behind this site which is titled "A Manx Notebook: An Electonic Compendium of Matters Past and Present Connected With the Isle of Man"

There are wills, church records, biographies, maps, Directories - and the list goes on. Don't miss this wonderful site for your genealogy research.

Featured Database: Fulton HIstory Full of Digitized Newspapers

This is a wonderful yet odd database of historic newspapers. To quote reason.com, "Amateur Beats Gov't at Digitizing Newspapers: Tom Tryniski’s Weird, Wonderful Website"

The site, FultonHistory, is amazing in its own right, chock full of wonderful New York newspapers. But on top of that reason.com reports that the Library of Congress' historic newspaper site, ChroniclingAmerica, has 5 million newspaper pages on its site. In January, visitors to Fultonhistory.com accessed just over 6 million pages while Chronicling America pulled fewer than 3 million views.

Mr. Tryniski's site is free and even though he has been approached by big companies with proposals for partnership, he refuses all in order to keep his work free for all.

This site is well worth checking out. Be sure you take a peek at his wonderful online collection of old postcards too.

Featured Database: Irish Valuation Revision Books 1864-1933

Today's featured database is the Irish Valuation Revision Books  at PRONI (Public Records Office of Northern Ireland) covering counties Antrim, Armagh, Down, Fermanagh, Londonderry and Tyrone between the years 1864 to 1933.

In total, c.3,900 volumes were digitally captured, with over 440,000 images now available to view online.

As of this blog post, the books are only searchable by placename, and there are still 41 volumes to be scanned. 

Genealogists with Northern Ireland ancestors will want to take a look at these Valuation Revision Books.

Court Ledger Book 1883-1937 Wythe Co. Virginia online

AncestorsAtRest has a new Court Records ledger book online for Wytheville, Wythe County Virginia. This Court ledger book belonged to William C Pendleton.

At the top of the first page of court records we read Wm [William] C. Pendleton, Clerk Court of Appeals at Wytheville, The Commonwealth Of Virginia. 

William C. Pendleton was born in Marion, Virginia, in 1847 and served in the 8th Virginia Cavalry in Tazewell County. After the Civil War he studied law and practiced in Richmond, Virginia.

He was the author of the History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia 1748-1920 . This volume has long been recognized as the definitive history of Tazewell County Virginia.

This court ledger book is full of entries starting in 1883 and ending in 1937. From 1883 to 1897 the book contains a record of what appear to be court cases in the Court of Appeals at Wytheville.

The second part of the ledger is a list of several hundred people who purchased his book History of Tazewell County and Southwest Virginia 1748-1920. 

Genealogical Research Death Index for New York 1957-1962

The New York State Department of Health has some death records online from 1957 to 1962.

In the drop down menu in the “category” box, choose “Genealogical Research.” There are instructions for downloading the data. 

The Genealogical Research Death Index assists individuals with locating New York State (NYS) death records that fall within defined genealogy years, exclusive of New York City recorded death records. 

The Index contains information on decedents, parents, date of death, gender, age at death and NYS file number that will allow the public to search for individuals on a variety of genealogy criteria; if on file for at least 50 years.  

Thanks to The New York Genealogical & Biographical Society for the heads-up about this online database

British Newspaper Archives - What I Like and Don't Like About this Site

Today's Featured Database is British Newspaper Archive

I subscribed to the site several months ago and am delighted with the items I'm finding on ancestors. They are busy adding new pages daily and state that they have 5,329,460 scanned pages as of today.

In my first month of use, I encountered a problem. When I clicked on a "hit" for an ancestor, I could not find his name in the newspaper page that loaded. I read the entire page several times and even clicked back and forth a few pages but to no avail.

So I wrote to explain that I'd been hunting for over an hour and could not find the entry. To my surprise, their customer service responded very quickly and were extremely helpful.  Even after I was given the correct page and URL to view it, I couldn't spot the name. I finally decided I was too frustrated to continue hunting and wrote back to request more guidance. The very patient customer service rep provided me with an exact column number and start of the paragraph containing my ancestor's name. With that help I was able to spot the bit I needed.

Since then I've had no problems with an incorrect link and I've looked at many. With both my maternal grandparents being born in England I've got a lot of English ancestors to look for!

I like their search engine. You can narrow your search with filters for date, region, county, specific place, type of article, public tags, or specific newspapers.  Once you find an entry you want to view, you simply load the page. Sometimes your search term is highlighted but not always. Usually the block of text where your search word is located is a darker grey, but again this does not always happen. The majority of the time it does and that makes finding the entry much easier.

You can order a copy of the newspaper page for a fee or you can download it to your computer. Downloading it does not give you a very clear image so what I do is enlarge the bit I want then do a screen dump. It gives a better image than downloading. If there was something really special I wanted to save I'd pay for a better copy.

The one caveat you should be aware of is that when you purchase an unlimited membership, it's not really unlimited. As the website points out in their Terms, unlimited membership is subject to their  Fair Usage Policy.  This policy spells out that you are permitted to view an average of 1000 pages per month (calculated over a 3 month period). If you get close to the limit, the company will send you an email to warn you.

Personally I don't like paying for something that is called Unlimited when it isn't unlimited. No matter how nicely the site explains it, I felt tricked that they didn't just call it the "1000 pages per month membership" or "Sort of kind of unlimited membership" or something totally upfront and transparent.  

Yes I did purchase an Unlimited Membership but the smaller credit options wouldn't have been enough for me given the sheer number of English ancestors I want to hunt for. And I don't like subscription websites where I have to buy x number of credits and woe is me if they expire before I use them all. Because I'm very apt to forget or get busy and lose credits. 

So the bottom line is that I'm very happy with the site and with my "unlimited" membership (even though it isn't unlimited) and I've never been warned that I'm at my 1000 monthly views limit.  But I still wish they'd come up with a more honest name for it. Or remove the limit.

Featured Database: Historical Records Survey NY City Church Records

Jim M. recently wrote to me about his website. If you haven't found it yet, and you have New York ancestors, you're in for a treat.  Jim has been uploading the  Historical Records Survey of New York City church records published in part by the W.P.A. (Works Projects Administration).

So far he has completed 3 volumes in the series including those for the Roman Catholic Church, the Reformed Church of America (DRC), and the Protestant Episcopal Church.  


This looks like a great website to bookmark! For other New York church records see New Netherland Church Records on Olive Tree Genealogy website

Records of the Old Dutch Church Totowa New Jersey 1756-1822

Today's featured database includes the records of the Old Dutch Church in Totowa New Jersey, baptisms 1756-1822 online in the New Jersey section of Olive Tree Genealogy.

These early church records include Father, mother; child, birthdate, baptism date; Wits: male witness, female witness, additional witnesses. Sometimes more information is provided.

The 1958 bulletin of the Passaic County Historical Society provides information on the history of this church:

From 1755 until about the year 1762, the Reverend David Marinus served as minister and pastor.  After Dominie Marinus left about 1762, the church was supplied by the pastor of the Fairfield Reformed Church for about five years; then until 1772, it appears that there was no one to minister to the congregation.  But in November 1772, the Rev. Dr. Hermanus Meyer came and remained the pastor until his death in 1791.  The Totowa Church now severed its connections with the Pompton Church but remained in close relations with the Church at Acquackanonk and shared in the pastorate of the Rev. Henricus Schoonmaker who gave one-third of his time to Totowa.  He preached at Totowa from 1791 until his retirement in 1816 and for a time lived in Paterson.  After March 1816, services were held every other Sunday and they were conducted by the Rev. William Eltinge, the Pastor at Paramus from 1816 until 1827 when on March 26 a fire on the roof completely consumed the building.

Featured Database: New Netherland (New York) Church Records

Were your ancestors early settlers in New Netherland (present day New York)? If yes, you will not want to miss this free data on Olive Tree Genealogy New Netherland section

Today we are featuring the Church Records. The first churches established in New York during the 17th century were Dutch Reformed, French Protestant, and Lutheran churches. As New Englanders migrated to New York, the Congregational Church (Puritans) and Society of Friends (Quakers) grew. Many New Yorkers joined both the Baptists and Presbyterians. By 1775 the Presbyterian Church was the largest denomination in New York.

If your ancestors were in New Amsterdam (New York City) then these are a must in your genealogy research!
Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam/New York Baptisms 1639 to 1801
Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam/New York Marriages 1639 to 1801

Reformed Dutch Church of New Amsterdam/New York Membership Lists 1649-1701

Featured Database: American Passport Records

Passport applications are often a valuable source of genealogical information. Some immigrants applied for passports to return home to visit family or friends. These records usually give a place of birth or at least the destination (which is often the home town)

Passports and passport applications can provide the following genealogy information:

* family, marital status
* birth place and date
* name of wife
* residence
* father's name and place of birth
* naturalization year
* name of ship, port and date of entry (after 1900)
* photograph of ancestor
 
Olive Tree Genealogy's sister site NaturalizationRecords.com has the following free passport records online at http://www.naturalizationrecords.com/usa/passports.shtml
 
* Register of Passports from 14 November 1834 to 1843 an Index for all states in USA

*  Index to Special Passports 1829-1887 an Index for all states in USA

* Index to Special Passports 1887-1894 an Index for all states in USA

* Register of Passport Applications 1809-1817

* Index to Emergency & Special Passport Applications 1830-1831

Featured Genealogy: Past Voices - Letters Home

This week's featured Genealogy website is Past Voices: Letters Home

Discover your origins in letters as ancestors tell their stories and reveal family relationships, past events, moments in time and details of family history. Find your ancestors through their own letters sent to loved ones far from home.

Past Voices gives our ancestors a voice - and these voices from the past come alive in their letters. Many letters on Past Voices are from soldiers far from home. Nothing tells the true reality of war more than the simple writings of the common soldier. These poignant letters from lonely men to their mothers, wives or sweethearts will touch your heart. Some letters will leave you bewildered by their unemotional telling of horrors almost beyond our comprehension.

Past Voices also contains letters and memoirs from ordinary individuals going about their everyday lives. These letters provide us with a sense of history, of being there and experiencing life with the people who write about the times they live in.

Choose from Ancestor Letters USA, Ancestor Letters Canada or Ancestor Letters UK

Featured Database: Outbound Ships Passenger Lists

Today's Featured Database is a project on ShipsListsOnline.

ShipsListsOnline is transcribing ships passenger lists leaving USA, bound for Europe and United Kingdom. Many of these passenger lists were donated to ShipsListsOnline by Shelby Thompson from her personal collection. Others were submitted by visitors to Ships Lists Online .

ShipsListsOnline is hard at work on these lists so visit the ShipsListsOnline page or join Olive Tree Genealogy Newsletter for updates on this and other Ship Passenger List Indexing Projects

Featured Database: War of 1812 Muster Rolls

Did you have an ancestor who fought in the War of 1812? You can search several online Muster Rolls for free on Olive Tree Genealogy

The following Muster Rolls and Miscellaneous Lists are available:

° Muster Roll of Capt. Abram Nelles’ Flank Company, from 24th July to the 24th of August 1812

° Muster roll of a Detachment of the 4th Regiment Lincoln Militia under the command of Lieut-Colonel Robert Nelles, commencing 11th of October and ending 1st of November, 1814

° Muster Roll of Capt. Wm.. Nelles’ Company, 4th Regt.Lincoln Militia from the 29th of April to 24th May 1813

° Muster Roll of Captain Jonathan Moore, 4th. Lincoln, from 25th July to 24th of August 1812

° War Of 1812 Muster Rolls

° War of 1812 Records Upper Canadian Volunteers - Corps Of Canadian Volunteers 18 July 1813 - 31 August 1813

° War of 1812 Records Upper Canadian Volunteers- List of names of men who Joined the enemy

° War of 1812 Records Upper Canadian Volunteers- Schedule of Names Who Have Volunteered Under Major Willcocks 18 July 1813

° War of 1812 Records Upper Canadian Volunteers -list of men commanded by lt. Col. J. Willcocks For october 1813-june 1814

° War of 1812 Records Upper Canadian Volunteers - Roll of men belonging to the corps of Canadian volunteersIn the service of the united states Under the command of col. Jos. Willcocks These men were ordered to service in different detachments. List taken At Batavia As Of June 1815

° 1818 Muster Roll, Militia Unit of Hastings County Ontario

° List of Some Men in the Glengarry Light Infantry Fencibles 1812-1814

° Property Losses, Newark 10 December 1813

° Non-Combatant Prisoners Of War From Newark 1812

° List of Widows Receiving Pensions War of 1812 ~ this list includes wife's name, soldier's name, unit, rank, date of death and cause of death

° Men killed and wounded at Oswego 1814