Surnames

This search engine   will tell you how many people (as of 2014) share a particular surname and where they live. You might be surprised: for example, this bloggers surname is Irish, but there were more people with that name in the Congo than in either Ireland or the U.S.

Copyright free images

The Legal Genealogist blog published this partial list of places to find copyright free images for your own blog or genealogical publication.

Library of Congress

New York Public Library

Matthew Brady Civil War photographs

Carol M. Highsmith Archive

Art Institute of Chicago   (find and check the box that says "public domain")

Confederate Pension Records

From the Handwritten Past blog: Interpreting a civil war pension certificate.
In the first paragraph and on the bottom of the page are links to other Civil War-related search tips.

Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR)

Click  here to learn about the Daughters of the American Revolution and how they can help you with your research. Hernando County has two chapters, in Brooksville and Spring Hill.

Thanksgiving

Genealogy and Thanksgiving go together like turkey and cranberry sauce. Thanksgiving genealogy is most associated with the Pilgrims, Plymouth Rock, etc. Read the history again here.

Buildings in New York City

If you or your ancestors lived in one of the 5 boroughs in the 1st half of the 20th century, you may be able to find a photo of the home, courtesy of the WPA and NYC tax collectors. The photos were taken between 1939 and 1941, and supposedly include "every single structure". The Municipal Archives of New York have put them online for free. Read all about it here; there is a link to the database in the last paragraph.  Source: ResearchBuzz

Yearbooks

The ancestorhunt.com website has  this list of links to yearbooks from high schools and colleges in  western states. The article includes a link to other yearbooks online(some free, some not).

DNA Testing of Stamps and Envelopes

It's not available to the public right now, and when it is it will cost you, but here is a new development in the use of DNA in genealogical research.

Where to Find Obituaries at Hernando County Public Library

1.       Nov 11 1987- Jun 30 2013 - Bound copies of Hernando Today at BV.

--you  can take a photo of the obituary with a smartphone or camera.

2. 1920’S TO June 17^th, 1992- microfilm at WH  (see the microfilm inventory)

         These are the old Brooksville newspapers, such as the Daily Sun-Journal, Brooksville Sun, etc.

The Train Depot Museum on 70 Russell St in Brooksville has an index of obituaries for the microfilm.

Museum hours: Tuesday, Wednesday, Friday & Saturday, 12-3  352-799-4766

The microfilm viewer at West is old and kind of difficult to use, but it does work. It does not have a printer. You can:

·         --take the microfilm(up to 3 reels)  to the Homosassa branch of the Citrus County library, where they have a newer machine with a printer

·      4100 S Grandmarch Ave, Homosassa

Phone:(352) 628-5626

Hrs: Mon-Thu 10-7, Fri-Sat 10-5

OR   take a photo of the obituary with a smartphone or camera.

3.       Florida Newspaper Database, in our E-Resources for Adults:

        St. Petersburg Times-  Jan 1 2000 -  Dec 31 2011 (plus a few editions from previous years)

       Tampa Bay Times     -   Jan 1 2012 - present (plus a few editions from previous years)

        Tampa Tribune        Jan 1 1999-June 22, 2011 (plus a few editions from previous years)

        Hernando Today   December 8 2006 - October 30 2009

Obituaries from this database and can be printed, emailed or downloaded to the computer directly from the database.

You can also try the Tampa Bay Times (tampabay.com) website. They sometimes have obits that do not appear in the Florida Newspaper Database. Click on “news”, then “obituaries”.  Go to the box at the right labeled “search obituaries and guest books”. Use the advanced search for older obits.

If you can’t find an obituary, check Ancestry or familysearch.org. Occasionally they will provide information on where to find an obituary. You might also find that the person died somewhere other than Hernando County.

Genealogy Interest Group

The Genealogy Interest Group meets the first Wednesday of each month, 10 am at W. Hernando Branch Library, 6335 Blackbird Ave, near Weeki Wachee.  The next meeting is November 7th, 2018.  For more information, please call Kathleen Marsh, 352-796-1623.

Military Records

Here  is the link to the National Archives page that deals with locating and requesting military records for your ancestors.

Form letters for foreign languges

This link to genealogy.com provides form letters for requesting information, plus translations of terms and relationships, in 4 languages: German, French, Spanish, and Italian.

Start Your Own Family History Blog

This article  from lisalouisecook.com will tell you how and why.

Improving Your Genealogy Skills pt 3

This is the 3rd of our links to a series of articles  from the Occasional Genealogist. This one uses  teaches about evaluating evidence, using books as a starting place.

1930'S African American schools in Laurens County, GA

The Georgia Digital Library has made monthly teacher reports from Laurens County  available online. The data covers 1930-39 and includes names and ages of students, name and addresses of teacher, and other information useful to genealogists.     Source: ResearchBuzz

Improving Your Genealogy Skills pt 2

This article, again from The Occasional Genealogist, discusses making full use of the census by taking advantage of the clues that are not always obvious. We thought this was especially interesting:

"Occasionally it even turns out what appears to be conflicting information from two different census years actually agrees, based on the instructions".

There is a link below that last paragraph to enumerator instructions from 1850-1950.

Improving your genealogy skills

Click here   for the first in a series of articles we will be linking to that will make you a better genealogist, courtesy of the Occasional Genealogist.

Mis-translation of names

This short article from the Olive Tree Genealogy blog  explains how names can be drastically transformed in the immigration process, causing a lot of confusion for researchers.

Genealogy on YouTube

Feedspot has listed its Top 25 YouTube channels for genealogy.

Lost military records

A fire in 1973 at National Personnel Records center in St. Louis destroyed a significant amount of records covering service personnel who were discharged between 1912 and 1964. Read here about what records were lost.

So. Carolina Revolutionary War records

The South Carolina Department of Archives and History has made a new set of records available on its Online Records Index: more than 11,000 Revolutionary War documents "presented by citizens to the treasury in support of claims for military service, supplies, and other contributions rendered during the latter part of the ...war". A press release, including a link to the records, is here  Source: ResearchBuzz

Irish Genealogy Project Archives

Here  is  a good free site from the Emerald Isle. It's broken down by category and includes gravestones, obituaries, census and church records. It is somewhat limited but growing thanks to volunteer contributions

Vermont newspapers archive

If you are on resident of the Green Mountain state, you can have free access to 200 years of Vermont newspapers on the newspapers.com website, via the state archives. To learn more, click here.

Restoring Daguerreotypes

There is hope for those old damaged photographs.  This article  talks about a new method for restoring daguerreotypes. Time will tell if this process will made available to the general public.

Researching your German Ancestors

This article from the Family History Daily blog will help you get started.

Mayflower Descendants

Can you trace your ancestry back to the Mayflower?  Click here  to find out.
Source: ResearchBuzz

Citizen Archivists Missions

The National Archives needs volunteers to transcribe  a variety records. You can participate online from home. Click here to find out how.

Digital scrapbooking

This article tells you how to get started on a digital scrapbook of your family history. One good advantage over the traditional scrapbook- it's a lot easier to make multiple copies and distribute them.

"Forensic Genealogy" Used to Solve Murders

Read about it here.

Help wanted

The Alabama Archives needs volunteers to help transcribe its collection of 100,000 WWI service records.  Click here and scroll past the U.S.S. Cyclops article to read about the project.

Database of African-American Civil War Veterans

200,000 black men served in the Union Army during the Civil War. A project is underway  to assemble their names in a searchable database. Source: ResearchBuzz

Calculating Family Relationships

If my Dad has a cousin, and that cousin has a son, and that son has a daughter, how am I related to her? A quick way to find out is at WolframAlpha's history resources.   Look for "Genealogy" in the middle of the page. The results include a family tree showing the relationship, and other relationship properties  (The girl above would be my second cousin once removed).

Using Reddit for genealogy

Social news aggregator reddit.com provides a place for genealogists to share their big breakthroughs and get advice from other genealogists. If you don't know about reddit, see the Wikipedia entry here .
This is the link to their genealogy content :www.reddit.com/r/Genealogy

Civil War Records at Fold3

Fold3 is providing free access to its Civil War collection from now until April 15th.

Old photos of Ireland

Ancestry.com has added a collection of photos of Ireland to their UK Historical Photographs and Prints 1704-1989 set. There are 120+ photos from the late 1800's to the 1950's, including depictions of daily life as well as historic events such as the Lusitania sinking and the Easter Rebellion.
Ancestry is available (in the library only) in our e-resources. Hover on "research help" on the homepage and click on "e-resources for adults".

Unique online magazine

Shades of the Departed  is a very well done online genealogy magazine- lots of old photos and good articles.  You can page through it like you would an ebook.

Dating Women's clothing; interpreting old documents

Knowing when a photo was taken can help provide a clue to who an unidentified person was. This article tells you how to date the photograph of a women by her clothing....an interesting article on a woman who makes a living deciphering old handwritten documents can be found here. Source: ResearchBuzz

Genealogy in NYC

New rules  will make genealogy research in New York City a lot tougher.

One ancestor buried in 2 different places?

Read about it here

Polish ancestors

Here are some links to get you started on researching your Polish ancestors:
genealogical-sources-in-poland
beginning-your-polish-research
https://www.familysearch.org/wiki/en/Poland_Genealogy

Tracking Down the Source of Newspaper clippings

This article from abundantgenealogy.com offers tips on identifying the source of clipping, obituaries, etc that don't include the name of the publication or the date. Source: ResearchBuzz

New York Slavery Index & Fold3 Black History records

The John Jay College of Criminal Justice at City University of New York has compiled an index of slavery records for New York that covers the period 1525 through the Civil War. The number of records is at 35,000 and growing, and includes much data of interests to genealogists....In recognition of Black History month, Fold3 is making all the records in its Black History Collection available for free for the entire month of February.
Source: ResearchBuzz

Hashtags

If you use Twitter, Instagram, or Google+, you should read this article from Amy Johnson Crow's blog about using hashtags in your genealogy work. We searched #genealogy on Google+ and got a lot of results.

Who was President when you, your family members, or ancestors were born? How many have held the office in your lifetime? https://relativeshisandhers.wordpress.com/2017/01/23/us-presidents-how-many-in-a-lifetime/