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