"Tracing Our Roots" Newsletter Archive (A monthly genealogy newsletter written by the late Brenda Kellow, dec'd, for the Plano Star Courier newspaper. We've included all the ones we could recover.)
The 2002 National Genealogical Society Conference, the biggest conference in the United States, opens on May 15 through May 18 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. This is a gathering of the nation’s best speakers and an opportunity of which everyone should take advantage. There are over 150 lectures scheduled, many by leading speakers or local notable speakers and the primary vendors from all over the country. The annual conference is a great place to learn and to be introduced to the newest products and publications on the market. As time grows closer to the May date, the vendors will have online booths for us to view whether we attend or not. You can already register online for the very first time.
The online brochure and registration is at www.ngsgenealogy.org/2002cover.htm.
1776 Index: Heritage Quest just released an individual CD that is an index to the Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty-Land Warrants, ACD-0111. The index was extracted from the National Archives Series (NARA) M805 and contains over 90,000 entries of pensioners and their dependants gleaned from application statements, muster rolls, orderly books, affidavits by witnesses, family Bibles, diaries, pay receipts, enlistment papers, commissions, warrants, and original records created at that time in history.
This index includes surname, given name, state organization, application number, and roll number. With this information at hand finding the digitized image of the application number on film or on CD is a piece of cake.
Viewing the original document image may reveal many clues to answering the questions to your genealogical puzzles such as the widow’s maiden name, where the applicant registered, the age and place of birth, marriage date and place and other valuable information. The digitized images of M805 are on 898 CDs copied from microfilm and assigned a CD number to correspond with the NARA records.
I typed the name of William Cunningham of North Carolina and up popped the roll number 238 and his pension number S3249. On roll 238 I quickly found William with ten pages of his digitized pension record with all the information to answer many questions about the old soldier including where he was living when he filed for his pension.
System requirements for the Index are: Windows 2000/ME/NT/98/95. These images are easy to navigate throughout. Just right click the magnifying glass to zoom the page. You save the image to be used in several ways from inserting it into a family history to sending it as an email to a fellow researcher. Like magic, your print copy of the image is clear and clean, even better than the image on the monitor.
The Revolutionary War Pension and Bounty Land Warrant Index is $19.95, as are each of the rolls with the images. Order from Heritage Quest online at www.heritagequest.com/html/indexes.html or by phone at (800) 760-2455.
SATURDAY SEMINAR: The next Saturday Morning Seminar will be March 16 and the topic is “Using Ancestry.com Like the Experts.” You won’t want to miss this. Time is 9:30-12. Doors open at 9:10.
LOCK-IN: The next Genealogy Library Lock-In is scheduled for Friday night April 26, 6-11 p.m. at the Gladys Harrington Library. For information call 972-517-4795 or visit Genealogy Friends Web page at www.geocities.com/genfriendsghl.
GENEALOGY WORKSHOP: An all-day genealogy workshop will be held Saturday May 4th at the Harrington Library from 9:30-4 p.m. The theme is, “Important But Little Used Records” and includes Adoption Records; Postal Directories; various types of Criminal Records. For more information visit Genealogy Friends web site at www.geocities.com/genfriendsghl.
Brenda Kellow, dec'd, Certified Genealogist and Certified Genealogical Instructor, had a Bachelor’s Degree in history and taught genealogy courses at the local Community College and computer genealogy at the University.
