Pinal County Library Notice

I was curious about the three Vista Grande Library books I have at home. When I checked the website, I learned that all physical items now have a due date of May 1. No worries about late fees.

Interestingly, the notice also said that Ancestry Library is now available from home. Anyone with a library card but no Ancestry subscription can access that edition.

Free Records on Ancestry

Free Access for At-Home Family Tree Building

The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration has teamed up with its long-term digitization partner Ancestry to provide FREE access to search nearly 500 million records and images on Ancestry starting today, making it even easier for people to discover their own family history from home. Exploring the records is completely free – just create an account by entering your email to start your search. 

The almost half a billion digitized and searchable records being made available to all for free are comprised of nearly 300 different collections, including ship passenger and crew lists, naturalization and citizenship records, immigration records, and key military collections such as WWI and WWII draft cards.  A sampling of the collections include:

• WWI and WWII U.S. Draft Cards
• New York, Passenger and Crew Lists, 1820-1957
• California, Federal Naturalization Records, 1843-1999
• U.S. Passport Applications, 1795-1925
• U.S. Compiled Revolutionary War Military Service Records, 1775-1783
• U.S., Confederate Soldiers Compiled Service Records, 1861-1865
• U.S., Border Crossings from Canada to U.S., 1895-1960

Free access to these collections from The U.S. National Archives and Records Administration provides rich, detailed records that make personal and educational discoveries simple. Whether you want to find your own family story, or take a peek into a moment in history, a discovery on Ancestry can be as easy as entering a single name. 

Colorizing Photographs

Do you need a project? MyHeritage is offering a free month for using their process to color black and white photographs. Here's the information from their blog:

"Starting today we are unlocking 'MyHeritage in Color' for unlimited use to give people who are isolated at home a fun way to pass the time and enjoy genealogy. Colorized photos can be shared with the whole family, and can help you see your historical photos in an entirely new way, highlighting aspects you may not have noticed before.

Ordinarily only 10 photos can be colorized by users who do not have a Complete Plan, but now you can colorize as many photos as you'd like for free until April 22, 2020."


Follow this link:

https://blog.myheritage.com/2020/03/myheritage-in-color-is-now-free-and-unlimited-for-one-month/

FindMyPast Deal

FindMyPast is offering another 40% reduction for a 12-month subscription. Maybe this is the right time to participate! It looks as if we may all spend plenty of time at home in the next few months. No better time for researching online. The offer is good through March 22.

Neglected Websites

This week we took a look at a few free websites that we should probably use more often. If you haven't visited them recently, you might want to take a look. Annie demonstrated glorecords, raogk, usgenweb and findagrave.

Let's look at some neglected websites

www.glorecords.blm.gov takes you to the land patent records of an ancestor who was able to purchase government land or the warrants that soldiers were awarded after their service. You can view the patent details (which also shows a map), the patent image and related details that show others who bought land in the same section.


raogk.com is a volunteer site where you can request lookups for areas that you might not be able to visit in person. The website has been in existence for a long time, although it took a break when the originator passed away. It has a Facebook presence, also.


usgenweb.org has recently been updated. You can visit any county in any state to see what records have been uploaded by volunteers. There is a Canadian version as well as a worldgenweb.


findagrave.com has a feature that some visitors might not notice. If you scroll down on an ancestor's memorial page, you can view others with the same surname in this cemetery. You can also choose to look for your surname in the same town or county.

Members who braved the rain to attend

March 10 Workshop

Doris volunteered to show us the visual family tree she created for a family reunion. She had eight siblings and many of the younger cousins had never met. Her tree had pictures of all the members of that extended family. At the reunion everyone was able to see photos of people in their particular generation, and each generation was color-coded. Doris, it was a great way for your relatives to quickly become acquainted with each other. Thanks for sharing!

Doris explaining her visual tree

Genealogy Club - March 3

Melanie Sturgeon

Melanie Sturgeon's presentation on Land Records and Maps provided several new suggestions about using deeds and assessment records for further research on our ancestors. Many times these records give us names of other family members.

Melanie explained the difference between the metes and bounds measurement system used in the early colonies and the rectangular survey system that resulted in townships in the public lands to the west.

Using Land Records and Maps

The maps and gazetteers section of Ancestry.com is another valuable resource that many of us should begin to use. Knowing where our ancestors were living helps us to locate more sources with information about their lives and families. Nearby neighbors are often relatives.

Learning about land records

Thanks to Melanie for a great presentation!

March Activities

There are many opportunities for genealogy education this month. Our club will continue to hold meetings at least through March 24. The Vista Grande Library also has their monthly genealogy class, and the library is holding an event called the "Grand View Library Camp" with speakers on a variety of topics.

Tuesday, March 3 - Melanie Sturgeon will present "Land Records and Maps" for our club.

Tuesday, March 10 - Patty Foley will demonstrate how to photograph cemetery markers and add them to FindAGrave.

Friday, March 13 - Annie's presentation on "County Histories" is scheduled for 10 AM at the Vista Grande Library.

Monday, March 16-Friday, March 20  - Grand View Library Camp

Tuesday, March 17 - To celebrate St. Patrick's Day, Jim Shanahan will give us an overview of the Irish Cultural Center in Phoenix and tell us a bit about the class he took on Griffith's Valuation.

Wednesday, March 18 - Annie's topic for the Library Camp at 9 AM is "Immigration and Naturalization Records."

Tuesday, March 24 - We'll take a look at some new features at Ancestry and FamilySearch.