Genealogy Pointers

January 28, 2009

New England towns have this curious way of seeming unimportant, everyday places while holding the most amazing people and places. Middletown, Connecticut is no exception. On a little hillock, pushed away from a busy street is a library devoted entirely to genealogy research, a treasure trove of rare and out of print books, catalogues, magazines and other resources. Open to the public, there is no fee to use the resources though there is bowl at the table in the front entrance where you can put a donation if you wish.

In the Spring 2008 edition of Godfrey’s newsletter, Director Richard Black says:

Here at Godfrey we know that devotion
to their “hobby” is a trait we often see in our patrons. The thought of making do with a limited selection of resources will never suffice. That is why we are looking to the future, near and far, to determine how we can best assist our patrons in finding the records they’re seeking.

In 2002, The Genealogical Society of Utah granted Godfrey a license to operate as a branch of the Family History Library in Salt Lake, thus allowing film borrowing privileges from the FHL microfilm repository making over 2 million rolls of microfilmed information available for a rental fee.

In addition to this incredible resource, the Godfrey has its own selection of microfiched materials. On one visit, I found a fiche of a now defunct genealogy newspaper column that carried a fairly accurate listing of one of my family lines.

If you can’t visit because you live too far away, the Godfrey offers an online Scholarship Research packages. The basic package includes:

Premium Databases–Ex: 19th Century U.S. Newspapers, Accessible Archives 19th Century Newspapers, London Times Digital Archives, American National Biography, OCLC World Cat

Unique Resources–This content is comprised of Godfrey’s own unique digitized in-house content, donated genealogical books, research materials and projects. Most cannot be found anywhere else on the web.

Godfrey Collection–4,000 genealogies, biographies, memoirs and funeral sermons

Godfrey Search–A search engine for a variety of indexed published materials

If you decide to visit and have extensive research to do, the Godfrey staff recommends calling ahead to confirm that a volunteer is available to help you.

Godfrey Memorial Library
134 Newfield Street
Middletown, CT 06457-2534
Email: nancy@godfrey.org
Phone: 860-346-4375
The Library is open:
Monday 9:00 am to 8:00 pm
Tuesday through Friday 9:00 am to 4:00 pm
and Saturday 9:00 am to 1:00 pm

Visit Godfrey’s website for more information.

If you have questions or suggestions what you would like to see on this site, please feel free to drop me a line at starrynightastro@aol.com. Also, feel free to use the comments sections to post your queries, provided that you do not use the comments to promote your own website. Who knows, you just may get lucky.

January 14, 2009

When the internet was born, genealogy research exploded in the digital revolution. At first there were message boards and eventually there were sites devoted to genealogy research. Scrolling through the tidbits of other’s queries, research was still long, sometime tedious, and other times exciting when a thread that was found that related to a family line.

One of my favorite sites was the Roots-L query archives. Looking it up today, I found that the archive was still up, and delightfully, a search engine installed. While there is nothing posted since 2006, there is still plenty of tantalizing tidbits. If you haven’t visited here is the link to the search engine:

Roots L Web Query Archive

Another favorite site is the USGenWeb project. They say of themselves:

We are a group of volunteers working together to provide free genealogy websites for genealogical research in every county and every state of the United States. This Project is non-commercial and fully committed to free genealogy access for everyone.

With links to UsGenWeb state sites, it is probably the most comprehensive free genealogy site available. Because it is staffed by volunteers at each state and county site, information is not updated often. However, the information there is valuable, especially for new genealogy hobbyists.

UsGenWeb Project

If you have questions or suggestions what you would like to see on this site, please feel free to drop me a line at starrynightastro@aol.com. Also, feel free to use the comments sections to post your queries, provided that you do not use the comments to promote your own website. Who knows, you just may get lucky.