California Digital Newspaper Collection

Los Angeles Herald, Volume 37, Number 270, 28 June 1910 - California Digital Newspaper Collection, Center for Bibliographic Studies and Research, University of California, Riverside, .

If your ancestors lived in California, you may find information about them in the California Digital Newspaper Collection at cdnc.ucr.edu.  Hosted by the University of California, Riverside, the website contains more than 500,000 digitized and text-searchable pages from California newspapers dating from 1846 to 1922.

Official birth and death records for California don't begin until 1905, so newspapers are an important resource for documenting lives before the 20th century. To learn more about the California Digital Newspaper Collection, stop by the Family History Center.

Canadian Records on FamilySearch.org

Do you have Canadians in your family tree?  Check out the resources for Canada at FamilySearch.org. Collections currently include birth, marriage and death; church, census, cemetery, military, land, court, and ship passenger records, and the list is growing. Records for some parts of Canada date to the early 1700's.

While you can search all of those collections simultaneously by entering basic criteria (first name, last name, birth and/or death information) on the main search screen at FamilySearch.org, you will get more useful results by searching collections individually.  To see the list of collections for Canada, go to FamilySearch.org and click on the Search tab.  Scroll down until you see the map of the world, then click on the link for Canada in the list of geographies.  Narrow the list of results to a specific province by clicking on the link (Ontario, for example).  Keep in mind that any Canada-wide collections (like the 1901 Canada census) will not be included in the province-specific list, even though that province was included in that census.

For more information about researching your ancestors from Canada, see the FamilySearch wiki article on Canada, or stop by the Family History Center.

Digital Collections - State Archives of North Carolina

State Archives of North Carolina Landing Page

Do you have family ties to North Carolina? Early North Carolina records are available digitally at the State Archives of North Carolina web site. Digital collections include early newspapers, family Bible records, War of 1812 pay vouchers, cemetery transcriptions, marriage records, estates, guardianships, and more.

 To search North Carolina Family Records Online, start at the State Archives of North Carolina and click on the link to Digital Collections and Publications in the green "For the Public" box.  (Or bookmark the page!)

West Virginia Vital Records Online

Marriage Record Search - West Virginia Division of Culture and History Website

If you have West Virginia ancestors, try searching West Virginia vital records using the West Virginia Division of Culture and History Website at http://www.wvculture.org/vrr/. Their collections are easy to search, and results are displayed in chronological order by county name, making it easy to quickly scan search results.

Index entries are linked directly to JPG images that you can view and download. Each collection (birth, marriage, and death records) has its own search page that includes a county-by-county listing of what years are included. Since there are often gaps in record coverage, this information may be particularly helpful if you do not find a record for your ancestor.

For help finding your West Virginia ancestors, stop by the Family History Center soon!

Italian Genealogical Group's Index to NYC births, marriages and deaths - much more than Italian names!

Volunteers from the Italian Genealogical Group have indexed millions of New York City births, marriages and deaths (and they didn't limit their efforts to Italian names!). Not all records have been indexed for all years, and the project is on-going, so check back if you don't find what you're looking for.  Each record type has its own search page that explains what that particular database covers (years, boroughs, etc.).  

Italian Genealogical Group - Database Search Screen

Go to the Italian Genealogical Group website at italiangen.org, click on [+] Database Searches, then select a collection and enter basic search criteria.  If it's a unique surname, start there. If you find your ancestor listed, then request the original certificate using Family History Library microfilm or the Photoduplication Request process. Remember that many immigrant families paused briefly in New York City on their way to other parts of the United States.

To learn more about locating New York City vital records using the Italian Genealogical Group web site in combination with FamilySearch.org, stop by the Family History Center.

Family Tree Magazine's free Vital Records chart

Family Tree Magazine Vital Records Chart

Vital records are records of life events kept by the authority of a government. Birth certificates, marriage licenses, and death certificates are all considered vital records, and are excellent sources of information about our ancestors' lives. Each US state has laws governing the way vital records are collected and preserved.

Family Tree Magazine recently published a handy chart listing the beginning dates for official records in all 50 US states. The differences by state can be important to understand. For example, New Jersey began keeping official birth records in 1848, but Mississippi didn't begin until 1912. Indiana didn't begin recording marriages officially until 1958. If your ancestor was born in Mississippi in 1902 and married in Indiana in 1930, you will not be able to locate either a birth certificate or a marriage certificate. If she was born in New Jersey in 1850 and married in 1868, you should be able to get copies of both. Some (but not all) vital records for 48 of the 50 states are available digitally at FamilySearch.org.

Family Tree Magazine's Vital Records chart is available for free at familytreemagazine.com. Copies are also available in the Williamsburg (VA) Family History Center.