Searching in Australia!

If you have British or Welsh ancestry, you may have cousins in Australia.  An excellent resource for Australian searching is "Trove," sponsored by the National Library of Australia.  It is a repository for digitized newspapers, and like most of these types of websites, it is excellent. It is very searchable, and has an added plus, which is that the article content is presented in a sidebar in a more legible script than you see in the scanned newspaper article, which is also visible.
Whoever thought of this, it was a brilliant idea.
I finally found the entire story of a the accidental death and funeral of a distant cousin who died in the 1880's.
Signing up is free, and it appears that searches without signing up are also possible.
Check it out at:  http://trove.nla.gov.au/
Image from:  flynationwide.co.za

Scanned marriage documents in UK at ancestry.com

Recently, I have been researching UK vital records, and I have been very pleased to find scanned marriage records from the UK.  This is a great boon to research, as ordering each record that might be desired is time-consuming and costly. Ancestry.com doesn't have all the records scanned, of course. But what is available is amazing. Everything can be seen, from the signature, or mark of the bride and groom, to the names of the witnesses, and the condition of the prospective pair (spinster, bachelor, widow, or widower). This is exactly the kind of document that is invaluable to the researcher, and kudos to ancestry.com for putting them on their website.
I know that familysearch.com and Fold3 are also doing a great job of scanning records. It is a delight to peruse them, and the information is amazing. The more that are scanned, the more families we can put together, and the we will have access to our family stories.

Family History in Haiti

Link to Genealogie d'Haiti et de Saint-Domingue

This is a special niche, and will only be of interest to those whose ancestors lived in, or passed through Haiti. Remember the slave uprising, and the plantations of yore.  For those people with any history of ancestry there, this is an excellent website, based on documentation from many sources. It is a one-stop place to acquire very good information, with details on the sources. This is really the best place on the web to see family trees for former residents of Haiti, including those with French ancestry. Truly a great find, and a boon to those who need those names.   And yes, Haiti ancestry is connected to Southern State ancestry. Enjoy!

Image from London Times:  http://www.presseurop.eu/en/content/article/173971-blame-it-france
Is it just me or does the plantation look sort of like a waffle?

South Carolina searching

Have I written about South Carolina research?
I know, I am usually extolling the amazing records for the northeastern states, or sometimes the location of their transplanted descendants, California.

Well. I am also enthusiastic about records for the southern states, especially since history has not always preserved those records very well.

One site that is beyond compare is South Carolina Department of Archives and History. The searchable database is not easy to find, even when you find the main website. So I am giving you the direct url to the part that you need :link

Once into the database, enter your search terms, usually by last name, and choose "or" not "and" for the counterpart, so that you will actually see some results. The results are indexes of archived material, with names that tell many stories (lists on slave transfers, on land deals, and so on). The great finds are the "online images available" results. One click and you see a scan of an original plat map, with boundaries, names, original longhand.

From before 1700 on--and as long as you like history, you don't even need to find someone in your family tree to get a kick out of the excellent documents. And if you are looking in South Carolina for someone from the distant past, this is a site  to put in your radar.
Image source: surveyhistory.org