Forget Expensive Subscriptions - Amazing Opportunity for Free Research! |
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As a long time subscriber to Ancestry and Genealogy.com, I have come to appreciate instant access to original source material such as census returns. The prices though have been a little hard to take. Convenience and expediency have been expensive...until now. While online recently at my local county library, I noticed a "genealogy" link which led me to a page with a link to HeritageQuest online.
I had heard of Heritage Quest, but I thought is was another subscription service. With a little digging online, I discovered that the service is available via libraries across the country. Odds are there is a city or county library near you which subscribes. After logging into my library with my free library card number, I had instant access to HeritageQuest. I couldn't help but think about the money I have spent over the years paying for what is free for the browsing via my library. Several different databases are available from HeritageQuest. Census ImagesAll available census records from 1790-1930, indexed through 1920. A partial index is avalable for 1930. The search tool is very easy to use. You may search by individual census year and/or state, if desired. Images may be viewed as a positive or negative, a useful option for harder to read pages. Images may be printed directly from your browser. When using the HeritageQuest print option, text information is added at the top of the page, which is a very nice touch. For example... MINDER, ALBERT (1920 U.S. Census) The image quality is good enough for basic research and will satisfy most users. For anyone wanting cleaned up copies for archival purposes, subscription options like Ancestry may still be the way to go. All images can de downloaded to your local hard drive in either PDF or TIFF format. Family and Local HistoriesI love doing original research, but I also love to avoid reinventing the wheel. Over the years I have had great success connecting family lines to those already well established and documented. HeritageQuest offers access to a collection of 20,000 book titles, including nearly 8,000 family histories and over 12,000 local histories, in addition to more than 250 primary source documents such as tax lists, city directories, church and probate records, and more. As you might expect, you may search by name or place. Image quality is comparable to Ancestry or Genealogy.com. As with the census data, book images can be viewed as a positive or negative, and either printed or downloaded in PDF format. PERiodical Source Index (PERSI)PERSI is a comprehensive subject index covering genealogy and local history periodicals written in English and French (Canada) since 1800. The time period of the articles ranges from the 1700s to the present. More than 1.8 million index entries from nearly ten thousand titles are represented by this work. A hit in the PERSI database leads to a page where one can see additional details about the publication, known repositories, and a link to a request form from the Allen County Public Library for a copy of source document. Revolutionary War RecordsThis collection includes selected genealogical records from an estimated 80,000 pension and bounty-land-warrant application files based on the participation of American military, naval, and marine officers and enlisted men in the Revolutionary War. Most of the records are dated between 1800 and 1900. The files are part of Record Group 15, Records of the Veteran Administration. A quick search for one of my known Revolutionary War ancestors produced seven pages of documents related to his widow's claims against the government over a periods of several decades. Records can be printed or downloaded. Freedman's BankThis was a resource I had never heard of. It contains 55 volumes of signatures of and personal identification data about depositors in 29 branch offices of the Freedman's Savings and Trust Company, 1865-74. The Company was incorporated by an act of Congress approved in 1865 as a banking institution established in the city of Washington, District of Columbia, for the benefit of freed slaves. The military savings banks at Norfolk, Va., and Beaufort, S.C., were transferred to the Company soon after if was founded. From 1865 through 1870 a total of 33 branches were established, including an office that was opened in New York, N.Y., in 1866. I did a random record search and found that the several records I looked at were relatively difficult to read. They did however provide the applicant's name, age, birthplace, parents and siblings. |
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1. It's Been Five Years for CensusTools |
