Research Blog : vital records

Start a new hobby in the new year!

GenCrazy@evpl — Tue, 30 Dec 2008 15:36:00 GMT

Need a hobby? Try genealogy.

Said to be second only to gardening, genealogy is the fastest growing hobby in North America.

I have been doing genealogy since I was 15 years old. I now consider it more an addiction than a hobby, but it is not a bad addiction to have. There is usually an event that gets you started. For me, it was the death of my grandma. She had been in an orphanage as a child, but I really never understood why, so I decided to find out.

Many people wonder how to begin. The best way to start is by writing down what you already know. Your full name, your birth date, and birth place. You can verify the information by getting a copy of your birth certificate from the county health department. Write down the names of you mother and father and their dates of birth, birth places. Add marriage information. You can verify this with a copy of their marriage license. In order to find and verify information, you must figure out the state and county in which a birth, marriage or death occurred. The county is where you can find the vital records. There are many websites that can provide clues or facts that you can later verify. One is the Browning Obituary Database. It can be found at http://browning.evpl.org/. This database is great! You can find relatives you may not have known existed. If you are looking for a relative, but you are not sure if that person is still alive, you may want to check out the Social Security Death Index at http://ssdi.rootsweb.ancestry.com/. There are likely many people with the same or similar names, so use more than one source to make sure you have the right person. You may find surprises along the way.

As you go back in time, the census records hold a wealth of information. Census information is only released 72 years after that census is taken. Generally, people are listed by household. Census records are by state, county and then by township. You may find out about relatives who died as children that you didn't know existed. You may find out that grandparents lived with their extended families.

Once you have found a little information, you can post queries or questions on various websites. Some sites are by county, some are by surname (last name), and some are by subject, like orphanages.

You can also check on military records. You many discover that one of your relatives fought in WWII, WWII or the Civil War; or that two brothers fought on opposite sides during that war.

As you look, don't be afraid to ask questions or post queries. Somebody out there may already know the answer or at least have some pieces to the puzzle. Most people who do genealogy are willing to share the information they find. The internet has made that easier.

Be careful not to give out too much information on people who are still living. Identity theft has become a large problem. Let me know how your search is going. Also feel free to send me questions if you get stuck.

Evansville Historical Records for Businesses and Immigrants

seeker@evpl — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 20:51:00 GMT

The people at the Browning Family Foundation, who brought you the Browning Genealogy Database (Evansville area newspaper obituaries) and contributed to the Local History Database, have constructed 3 more historical databases to help local history buffs!

If you're looking for an early business and want to know when it started or who started it, many businesses filed Articles of Association with the courts. The Browning Family Foundation volunteers and employees have indexed these records covering the 1850's up to the 1980's in the Evansville, IN Business Entity Database. The Simple Search allows you to search by the name of the business or by the names of the businessmen signing the Articles of Association, usually principal officers and major investors. The record you see will include the business name, type of business, and the names of associated businessmen. Advanced search can search on any portion or combination of business type (church, oil refinery, livestock), business name, individual's name or address.

If you're interested in early immigrants to this area, check out their 2nd database. The Evansville IN Immigration Database allows you to search the intentions to immigrate and naturalization papers from 1850's to 1920's filed in Vanderburgh and Warrick Counties. In Advanced search, you will be able to search by any combination of name (last or first), birth location or date, or country emigrated from. The records differ, but may give name, petition number & page & vol number, birth date & location, country emigrated from, arrival location or vessel or date, occupation, current address, names of family members, and notes the petitioner thought important to include. These books are old and fragile and are due to soon be sent to the Indiana State Archives. As time permits, photos of the original pages will be attached to the information already abstracted so that these important documents will still be available to genealogists.

The 3rd database, Browning Obituaries, is an ongoing work-in-progress to expand the information available in the Browning Genealogy Database with obituary information from 3 more counties: White County (IL), Gibson County, and Posey County. In some cases, this will include scans of the actual newspaper obituaries with photo. Additional information available includes records, photo, and biographical essays from the Browning Funeral Home.

I was delighted to try these databases out to see how much information is in them and how many different ways they are indexed. Genealogists and those interested in local history will be first in line, but they're rather intriguing just to poke around in. Kudos to the industrious people at Browning Family Foundation for their hard work in making these databases of valuable information available!

Browning Genealogy Database now available on VINE

seeker@evpl — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 14:56:00 GMT

Digital records from EVPL's Browning Genealogy Database can now be seen in the State Library's VINE database (http://vine.in.gov). Vital Information Exchange, (VINE), is a collaborative state wide database that searches databases on Indiana local history and vital records from Indiana libraries, historical societies, genealogy societies, etc. Right now, it only searches names, but eventually it will be searchable by county or event. Mike Abaray tells me that we are sending copies of our new entries in the Local History Database to them, so these will eventually be available as well.

To see how it works, go to the Indiana State Library site at http://www.in.gov/library and click on The VINE (Vital Information Exchange) under Online Services in the upper right corner.

Type in the last name Bosse and choose obituary as your record type from the list: anniversary, biography, birth, cemetery, census, church records, death, divorce, marriage, military, mortality, naturalization, obituaries, school/yearbooks.

There are 22 obituaries for the Bosse family all over the state. The first record from us is Benjamin H. Bosse, nephew of Mayor Bosse. Oddly enough, the address for the Browning Obituary Database appears under "Survivors" as a source for additional information, but the link is not live. EVPL's name, address and logo appear on the record, but not our link.

The Browning Genealogy Database is one of our most popular databases with genealogists from all over the US, but the exposure from VINE should increase our hits. I think VINE is a useful tool for genealogy searchers right now, and will be a good resource in the future for Indiana local history.