Random Genealogy

Carmen Villa Prezelski has a good article in the Tuscon Citizen (AZ), Deeper genealogy dig may uncover Irish relatives, about getting into genealogy and family history research, as well as looking at Irish and Mexican/Spanish genealogy links. The Irish-Mexican links are particularly interesting – according to Prezelski, Thousands of Irish farmers, soldiers, miners and merchants resettled in Mexico in the 18th and 19th centuries. I’ve heard this mentioned before, but never thought about it.

Excerpt from the article where Carmen talks about getting into genealogy:

Just recently I began investigating our family’s genealogy. There’s an irony in this because years ago I used to work in an office where people who were doing this type of work would come in to use our research tools. Frankly, I thought some of them had gone around the bend.

I have only started to scratch the surface, but I can see how the pursuit of the family history can become an obsession for some people.

Somebody emailed me this, and I’m still not sure exactly what is is or involves – it looks like the New York Times and the Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation have teamed up for some kind of promotional that involves access to the Foundation’s database of genealogy/historical records for free, but you are encouraged to spend almost $500 on a keepsake.

The keepsake sounds cool, but I’m not sure about $500 cool. Here’s what it is:

- Copy of the ship’s passenger list with your relatives’ names and arrival date.
- A photo of the ship on which they arrived (if available).
- Personalized text that displays your ancestors’ names.
- A Liberty-Ellis Foundation plaque, plus Times embossing.
- Measures approximately 31″ x 32″

More information:
www.nytstore.com/ellis/
Product Details

Jenny Barkley writes in the Paris Beacon News (Illinois) about Fred Delap’s efforts to put Illinois Civil War records online. Illinois has done a lot of work to put records online for genealogists and historians, and its because of people like Fred Delap. This covers almost 300,000 soldiers from Illinois, and their number of descendants could literally run into the millions. Before now, these records were only available in offline, in person at the archives where they were stored, and you had to look through ledgers (which probably didn’t help with preserving the ledgers from a historical perspective).

Excerpt from the article:

For years, Fred Delap of Kansas has focused on Illinois soldiers who served in the Civil War. Now, the Civil War Muster Rolls are instantaneously available at the push of the button from the Illinois State Archives web site, the result of his efforts.

“Personal information about the more than 285,000 Illinois soldiers who served in the Civil War is now available on the web site and will be a boon to genealogists and historians looking for information,” said state archivist Jesse White. “This information was taken mainly from large, bulky ledger books that in the past could only be accessed through research at the Norton Archives building in Springfield.”

The original Muster Rolls were hand written, gathered from the enlistment records, Delap explained when interviewed at the Edgar County Genealogical Society where he routinely volunteers his time.

The database contains the names of soldiers who fought with Illinois units during the Civil War. In most cases, it also shows the soldiers’ age, physical description, hometown and service record, including the dates of entry into and discharge from service. A search can be conducted electronically based on any of these details.

You can access the records at CyberdriveIllinois.com – click on departments and from there click on Illinois State Archives. From there click on “SEARCH OUR ONLINE DATABASES”, or simply go here.