Updating

Doing a little updating to the site. Just added an Immigration page. Been really busy but still trying to dedicate at least a few hours a week to this site. Weather has been terrible so we haven't went around to the local cemeteries.

Hope everyone has a great day!

Google News ( Free )

No this isn't news about Google. I just actually came across this. I have always used Google Books to research from. Google News is a list of newspapers that have been archived. You can actually look at the pages online. It goes by the name of the paper which if you aren't sure what that would be you can look here to find your states newspaper. It also lists what year the issues are from.

Hope you find this helpful.

Immigration Ancestors Project ( FREE )

Immigration Ancestors Project is a free database to search for your immigrant ancestors. Students from Brigham Young University are hired as part of the project team to supervise the volunteers and edit their work before adding it to the database. Images of emigrant papers are transmitted over the web to volunteers to transcribe. You can read more here

ArchiveGrid ( Free )

ArchiveGrid provides access to detailed archival descriptions for institutions in the United States. These descriptions are from historical documents, personal papers, family histories, and other materials.

Here is also their FAQ Just scroll down to read this section on their site.

What Flag is That?

Maybe some of you would like to add your ancestor's country's flag to your research. I know with me some of my ancestors have very little information on them. Just dates for some and where they were born. I try to add information of their country of birth and other historical information concerning the town they lived or died in. Just so I have a little more information on them. Which occasionally leads to information I did not have on them before. But anyways...getting back to adding research; I found a site that lists flags. It is easy to navigate around and it seems flags are being added.

It is called the Easy Flag Identifier . If you are researching ancestors from America don't forget that every state here has a flag of their own. Or you might have pictures that may have a picture of or the flag itself to help you identify the picture.

I hope that helps some people out with their research.

* Just a little note here: It has been really busy for me in the last few weeks. Spring is here and I have been cleaning up our garden. Veggies have been planted. Trying to get myself settled in because I found out I will be staying in New York indefinitely. Sometimes relationships end when you least expect them to. But I will be ok and have alot to keep me busy with. ALOT lol.

Operation War Diary

Historic records are priceless information in genealogy. From something that has been passed down through the generations or what you may find online or any other place. Some records online have been transcribed. Which means someone read and then typed out what the document or record contained. There are several places like Family Search, Ancestry and Billion Graves where you can help out with transcribing. It's great to always play it forward and give back what in turn someone may have given you.

The National Archives has press releases and we came across one that announced Operation War Diary. Upon further reading we found they had records you could go over and select certain keywords for these diaries of military personnel from WWI. If you have the time sign up to volunteer. The above link has more on what to do ( they have an easy tutorial ) and there is nothing to download from what I see. This is just helping to preserve a little history.

Civil War Photos

Unidentified Confederate Soldier

Do you have ancestors who were in the Civil War? We do. One we have been trying to find a picture of is Lucien P. Abbott. Not having a whole lot of luck though. But in searching for his picture we came across some links to photos. Some have names and others do not. 

Lijenquist Family Collection of Civil War Photographs Confederate

Union

Women and Children

Spring Is Here To Stay Now

Gerard J. Wallace 

Long Island National Cemetery

New York

I think I can now say up here in New York Spring is here to stay. And with that comes our trips to historical sites, societies and cemeteries. I am hoping this season will turn up lots of information and hopefully what we find may help someone else out.

There is something we are going to try out and see how well it works. Once we get the final project ready to share we hope some of you will like it.

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Historical Societies

Historical Societies can have very valuable information. We will be visiting a few local ones here on Long Island in the upcoming months. They can have anywhere from pictures, maps, items, books and many other things about the local area and local people. You might be able to even find information on your ancestors there. Make sure you bring a list of things you might want to look up like names, dates, towns and other things.

Not sure where your local Historical Society is? Here is a link to find out where. This link also has Canada and Australia Societies too.

St. Catherine's Infirmary 1895-1935 Amityville, New York

As we went to plant some daffodils at our great grandmother's grave at Trinity Cemetery in Amityville, there was another grave I had wanted to find. Margaret Burke. I had a picture of the grave and the site it was at with a big bush that had red flowers on it. It looked like a bottle brush bush. So here we were looking for this bush. Our mom said the original photo on findagrave looked like there was a stone in the bush, but we weren't sure. We could not find this bush. Then as I was getting ready to give up I saw the graves. They were flat and all together. The bush had been removed and they had put up a sign.

Here is Margaret's grave.

Jacob Krauss

A few more....

The bush was covering the block of stone.

We think the block of stone was part of the old St. Catherine's Infirmary that was originally in Amityville. It was moved out on Long Island to West Islip. We are still looking into more information on this place and who the people are that are buried in Trinity. We found this very interesting and will keep you updated.

Our Facebook Group

Our blog used to be called "Not So Far From The Tree" but some people thought it was a gardening group lol. The same with our facebook group. So here is the link to our Frugal Genealogy group.

Frugal Genealogy Group

There is only 14 members and I am hoping to be adding more soon ( wink wink )
This will be a place to ask questions on where to find things and we will be posting links that are free. Even ones that are worth the subscription.


Have a wonderful day!

No Picture of Your Ancestor?

You are going through all of your photos of your family. The further you go back the less pictures you have. Let's face it, in the early 1800s not everyone got their picture taken. So now what do you do? Here are a few places you can look for to at least find a description of your "camera shy" ancestor.

1. Passport Applications- Not all of these have photos. Some of the earlier ones just have a description of the applicant. Even if you find your ancestor and the application has no picture you will at least have an idea of how tall, color hair, eyes and other features like tattoos or any other markings.

2. World War I Draft Cards- This information also has a description as to their build, color eyes, color hair and other features. No pictures of the applicant on these records, but again you get an idea if your great great uncle had the blue eyes that run in the family. Although if an older relative filled one out they might have had gray hair by then so you will have to look at other records.

3. Naturalization Records- Again as in the other resources listed here some of these records have eye color, height, hair color and other distinctive marks and features.

4. Military Records- Same as the WWI records in most cases. Discharge papers will tell you about the person's health when they left the military and if they were wounded. They usually have a description too sometimes.

5. Voter Registrations- There were some applications where a description was needed to be filled out in the 1880s.

6. Military Yearbooks- These are great to find. For the United States Air Force WWII here is a link to some of the airfield schools and yearbooks. We found our great uncle who was a B-17 pilot and his yearbook.

7. Immigration Papers- If you know when your ancestor immigrated here to the United States you can check their immigration record/ship manifests here at Ellis Island online and some will have their height, eye and hair color.

We hope these will be some helpful resources for you in your research.

Cemeteries Update April 16, 2014

Updated more cemeteries within the past couple of days. There is alot and it will take some time to list them. You can check for the updates here.
Hopefully the weather will be nice tomorrow and we can visit some local cemeteries here and take some more pictures. Still very windy today. Only going to be in the low 40s. Hope everyone has a great day!

Mocavo Free Forever?

According to Mocavo they are going to be free forever. This is explained better on their website. Seems searching through their databases isn't free, but looking at what the have added is free. I was a little confused but they explained it better here. Free takes longer to search. It's more like browsing. Searching you would have to pay for the subscription. I have a free account with them.

I would browse through as you may find what you are looking for but it just might take a bit longer. That's just because I am frugal lol.

Photos at Trinity Cemetery, Amityville NY

Last year we went to Trinity Cemetery where our great grandmother is buried. It's a beautiful cemetery. We strolled around and took some pictures.

Just beautiful.....

Photos on this page are ©2013 Frugal Genealogy

If you wish to use my photos please ask permission.

Updating Cemeteries

Updating Cemeteries today. Links are found under each state for each town/city. In parenthesis are the same cemetery but a different link. Note that all states are not complete yet. Added a link to some Irish graves in Ireland.

Here is the link directly to our cemetery page:
Cemetery page

United States Databases Updated

Today updates of our United States databases including churches. The churches are just a list of the church itself per state. Will be adding more states and Canada churches. These links are not complete but they may help you in the name of a church for the town you are researching.

United States

Genealogy Vocabulary

We had posted a link a ways back on meanings of occupations used in the earlier census. Here is a link called Big Book of Genealogy  from Family Tree Forum
Here you will find not only meanings of occupations your ancestor had but also other definitions you might be confused on while just starting out on your journey.

Louisiana Troops 1720-1770

Here is a book you can look through on Ancestry of a list of Louisiana Troops. This is not transcribed but you can actually look through the digitized version free.

Louisiana Troops 1720-1770

Mount Zion Cemetery, Maspeth, Queens New York Database

As I sit here ready to post on our blog it is snowing. We weren't supposed to get snow here in New York. It's even supposed to be 50 today. Crazy weather. 

Mount Zion Cemetery is located in Maspeth, Queens, New York. They have an online interment database on their site. I absolutely love when cemeteries do this. I wish more did. 

Mount Zion Cemetery

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Margaret Brown "Unsinkable Molly"

On a trip to several cemeteries in our area, I decided to search and see if I could find some infamous graves. My very first one, which I don't think many know around here on Long Island, was Margaret Brown   (nee: Tobin, 1867-1932 ). She is better known as Molly Brown or "Unsinkable Molly".
She was a first class passenger on the ill-fated Titanic. Margaret was married to James Joseph Brown ( also known as J.J.) Margaret lived till 1932 and was buried, along with her husband,  in Holy Rood Cemetery in Westbury New York. It was a beautiful day when I went. The church bells were ringing making it even more beautiful. Here is the footage I took:

March 25, 2014 Update

We have updated and added some more cemeteries which you can look through here. Not all cemeteries are listed as this is a work in progress. We will be adding world wide cemeteries real soon.

Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

March 25, 1911 is a tragic date in New York history. 146 people died in a fire at the Triangle Shirtwaist Factory in New York City. Here is a list of the victims:

List of victims

We are researching the young woman named Clotilde Terranova who jumped to her death from the 10th floor. We have Terranova's in our family. Do you have ties to any of the victims? Please comment and share your story.

Historical Markers

Historical markers may be another source of information. Your ancestor might have lived in a historical place. They might have fought on a battle field. Maybe they were involved in a plane crash.

Most markers have dates which can be quite helpful. We have found a historical marker database where you can look up markers. There may be a picture and the coordinates of where the marker is listed. You can also add markers too.

Historical Marker Database

Hart Island New York City Database

Did you know....New York City purchased Hart Island in 1868 to serve as its Potter’s Field—a place of burial for unknown or indigent people. It is the tenth Potter’s Field in the City’s history. Previous New York City Potter’s Fields were located at the current sites of Washington Square, Bellevue Hospital, Madison Square, the New York City Public Library, Wards Island and Randall’s Island. 

Harts Island also has a searchable database of people buried there but only as far back as 1977. 

Here is the link:

Harts Island Database

And don't forget to check out the FAQ also as there are restrictions on visiting the island if you do find out you have a relative buried there.

FAQ

Here are the 2 maps of the island and where the graves are.

Map 1

Map 2

Newspapers: Brooklyn Daily Eagle ( New York )

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle was published from 1841 to 1955. It was later revived again for a short while. The paper has been made into digital format but so far only from October 26, 1841 to December 31, 1902. This they say is Phase I. Always check back to see if they have added more.

Brooklyn Daily Eagle Newspaper

Irish Buried in Vermont

Do you have Irish family from Vermont that you are researching? Here is a link to inscriptions from Vermont cemeteries.

Click Here

There was a lot of Irish immigrants who came to the United States through Boston. Some of my Kilgallons did. Some may have migrated to Vermont.

Newspapers

Looking for newspapers for a certain state? Here is a site that has most of the United States newspapers. Categorized by state this may help you in finding an obituary or even some archived issues. Hope this helps some people out there.

50 United States Newspapers

Alternative To.....

As we research we find some programs or websites that work for us and some that don't. I was reading about the Google Reader and thought that would be something I might use. But alas Google discontinued it. So I wanted to find something that was very similar to it. And I came across this site:

AlternativeTo

I am in love with this site! You can see what other software or programs are out there. As you can see I searched for "Genealogy" and you can see a few of the hits it came back with. You can use this for websites too. And not just for genealogy. Just about anything. Let me know what you think.

Genealogy Software Reviews

When researching our family history we try to find the best programs to suite our needs. Sometimes that turns out to be a little difficult at first. But through trial and error we succeed...sometimes. One person has taken all the trial and error and made it a lot easier for us by listing them on his website. He then had other people review these programs too.

Don't forget to take into consideration that everyone has different opinions about things. And we all might need different programs to make our research work for us. But with these reviews at your fingertips it is so much easier to choose.

Free Sites For Genealogy

Most of our sites here on Frugal Genealogy are going to be free sites to use for genealogy. If it is a paid site it is there only because you will be able to search the site and get a little information for free.


Pixlr:  The most recent site we found was a photo editing site called Pixlr. This site you can scan those old negatives you have and then switch them to a photo to use digitized or to print out all for free. You don't even have to download any software to use this as it is used right from the site itself. This is also great for some of us who collect vintage photos from flea markets and garage sales. Some only have the negative or tins for sale. So this will be a great program to use to bring these back to life. Maybe with your help some may even find their way back home where they belong.

Newspapers: If you look on the right hand side of our site here you will see a link for Newspapers. These are free sites to look up newspapers that are digitized online. You can find obituaries, wedding announcements, birth announcements and just any kind of news. Most places back in the day would post in their local paper who was visiting who and if they were going or coming back from a trip. Some even had announcements of divorces or even criminal news. The links we have are not the only ones out there as we will be adding more as we find more. You can always help by commenting down below or at our facebook page if you find any free sites we don't have listed.

Speaking of our site check out the right hand side for other links to many sites where you can find free information for researching. As always if a link is broken just let us know on our facebook page and we will fix it as soon as possible.

Genealogy of the Brewster Family 1892

Here is another e-book online you can look at for free about the Brewster family. There is no publisher or no copyright.

Click here.

Elder William Brewster and The Brewster Family

Here is the link to the Elder William Brewster and the Brewster Family of Portsmouth, New Hampshire:

Click here

Author: Brewster, Lewis Waterbury, 1830-
Subject: Brewster family
Publisher: Portsmouth, Press of A. G. Brewster
Language: English
Call number: 31833012068919
Digitizing sponsor: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Book contributor: Allen County Public Library Genealogy Center
Collection: allen_county; americana
Notes: No TOC Markings appear in scan

Using Wild Cards

Did you know you can use "wild cards" in researching some of the genealogy sites? With Ancestry.com you can search by using two characters. The first one is "?" ( without the quotation marks ). This is great to use if your ancestor's last name could be spelled differently down the years like one of mine Weed, Weede Wede. Entering lets say Weed* or Weed? can bring up different results you might not have found.
Using the "*" to at the end will bring up different spelling like with the name Ann, Ann* ( Anne ) and so on.

When using Google search you can search by putting the persons name you are looking for in quotation marks like this:
"John Smith"
This way it won't just pull up "John" or everything with the name "Smith". You can even be more specific by Entering it this way:
"John Smith New York"
This also works with dates too. Even looking up obituaries.

So give it a try and see if this helps narrow down your searches.

My Heritage and Billiongraves Working Together

Sometimes it takes just a group of people to get the ball rolling. Recently My Heritage teamed up with Billion Graves to work together in a project that benefits not only each other but millions of people researching their family history. Both companies are linked together to help researchers find more information.
A group of 80 My Heritage employees from Israel got together and decided to try out the Billion Graves App for themselves. They photographed a whole cemetery in Israel. If you want to read the whole story you can read it here.

Don't Forget!

Don't forget to look over marriage certificates that you have of your family. The witnesses actually might be related. The same with christenings and baptismals. I found this out with my great grandmother's certificate.

Look at the names. Not sure who Stephen Saunders is but I found that last name in other probate papers. And Marguerite Bourke is related to Bridget my great grandmother. Always check over every detail. And in some cases if it doesn't make sense at the time come back to it later. 

Updated February 28, 2014 Florida Links

I have updated and added Florida State links under the United States Links. Found a bunch of military sites which I hope are helpful to everyone.

Don't forget to check out my twitter feed on this page for the latest links I have found.

Frugal Genealogy on Facebook!

As most of you know my passion is researching my family tree. I take a few days a week to go through my findings and try to fill in the gaps. I have learned over the years that you do not have to spend alot on this research. I thought since I was able to come up with quite a bit of sites and helpful hints why not share my findings. I came up with Frugal Genealogy. Every day I have now been tweeting links to my twitter account :

Frugal Genealogy

If they are a paid site but worth a look I will tell you that it is paid. Sometimes even if they show a snippet of the information you are searching for, you might be able to fill in a gap in your tree.

Within the past few days I got on the facebook bandwagon and started my page there

Frugal Genealogy

I am able to post a bit more than what's in a tweet and you will be able to comment. I think the facebook page is more personal with other people researching.

So come and see if any of my sites or helpful tips can provide the information you need to fill those gaps in. Or get through a brick wall. And don't forget to share your favorite sites too.

How Does Everyone See You?

I laughed when I saw this picture. It is really true in a way. I definetly feel like a detective when researching my family. I have numerous brick walls. There are even times when I break through that brick wall that I just sit down and cry. Years of being frustrated with very little to go on. 

Don't forget that even the slightest thing can give you a clue. For years I had been trying to find information of my paternal great grandmother. I had only known her as Adelle. And that my grandmother shared her name as her middle name. In the United States Census she was listed as Adelle living with her husband Peter in New York. in 1920. But then in 1930 she was gone. Peter was listed as a widow with my grandmother and her brother. What happened to Adelle? My Mom then recalled my grandmother saying how her mother had died in childbirth. How sad. But she didn't know when. We have no idea where her mother and father are buried as she never spoke of this to anyone. I found a Peter Swenson married a Nanny Johnson August 26, 1911 in NY but didn't think it was my family. But the date was very familiar. My grandmother had been married three times and one of her wedding dates was August 26. And my father died on August 26 so this was just too coincidental. Then my mom came across a note written by a woman we knew was related to my grandmother but didn't know how. And in the note was a burial card for her mother. Alma Johnson! Alma was Nanny's sister! Well sister-in-law. Alma had married Theodore Johnson, Nanny Adelle's brother. Yes her middle name was Adelle. I was so happy to find this new information. 

So don't forget to sometimes go with your gut instinct sometimes and put the information aside until you can prove a source. I have a section in my file cabinet for misc. stuff like this to go back to. Never give up!

Update: Twitter and Spring Showing Up

Sometimes I think I am losing my mind. Has that happened to anyone else? I have 3 twitter accounts and I forgot what I used to log into my Frugal Genealogy twitter account with. After not using it for awhile I finally decided to try again and behold! I was able to get into the account. Makes me so happy.

Now if you follow me on twitter I have started to list links that will help you in your research and retweeting others posts that maybe useful. I will try and at least list a few things each day. If not it will be a few times a week.

The snow here in NY has finally started to melt and spring is showing through. Mom's crocus and hyacinths are starting to pop up through the ground. And today there was a robin who visited our lawn. We may have a few cold snaps here and there but this is a good sign.

And here's my twitter @FrugalGenealogy

February 5, 2014 Update

Updated under the United Kingdom and Ireland tab at the top of the blog is some links for Ireland. Also added Connecticut under the United States. More will be added in the next day or two. Right now we have had snow and then ice and there has been sporadic power outages. So please bear with me. Thanks for checking us out here!

Update February 4, 2014

Update today here is a tab for United States Links. I have only a few for Alabama so far. I will be checking monthly for errors and broken links. I am hoping to get this going and stay on track with it to help people with their work. If you find a broken link just leave a comment and I will fix it as soon as possible.

Genealogy Links

Trying to find links to research your family tree can sometimes be very frustrating to the beginner genealogist. Especially when first starting out you have very little means except some information and a computer.

One great place to start is Cyndy's List. She has tons of searchable links all categorized to make it easier for you. The only downfalls I have come across is some of the outside links you have to subscribe to with a fee or the link is outdated. Don't get discouraged if the link brings you to a subscription site. Sometimes they will show you a snippet of info that could help you out.
Also before you start searching the above link please make sure your browser's security settings are set. This makes sure you do not put your computer at risk. Also if you come across a link that doesn't work she wants you to let her know. There really is alot of sources on her page to get you started.

Now after you have found some good links to search from your next step is to bookmark them. Some sites are always being updated with more information so if you do not find anything this time you might later on down the road. But make sure it pertains to what you are searching for. No point in bookmarking say information to Egypt when this has nothing to do with your ancestors because more than likely you will not find what you are looking for no matter when you check back.

I find the easiest way to have all your genealogy book marks together is using a site called Protopage.   As you can see from my page you can group your bookmarks together. This makes searching so much easier.
I will go over some of my favorite links in upcoming posts.