Chronicling America: A Treasure at the Library of Congress

One of the best free websites for finding and using American newspapers is Chronicling America, the digital collection at the Library of Congress (LOC). The site has been up and running for years, but a few years ago, the LOC added an interactive map and a historical timeline that make the collection so much more valuable. With the interactive map, the search functionality of the site is enhanced by the ability to pinpoint exact locations for the newspapers in the collection and to be able to access the newspapers according to publication date.

StLGS July Genealogy Meetings

Summer has arrived most definitely throughout the world, so we hope you are staying cool and dry! We have some interesting meetings this month, air conditioned at both our office and the St. Louis County Library! Please don't forget that the deadline for early registration for our Salt Lake City Research Trip is tomorrow, June 30th, and remember that you can still watch the digital recordings of our Family History Conference for another two weeks by registering to view them. All the information you need is below. . . . 

Put Meat on the Bones of Your Family History!

You have undoubtedly heard many genealogists talking about “putting the meat on the bones” when it comes to their family history. Just how do you do that and what does it mean? We learn when we start working on our genealogy that it’s vital to capture names, dates, and places for everyone in our family tree. Of course, it is absolutely necessary to find documentation of basic facts and we need specific information to do that. But if we want to understand our ancestors as living, breathing human beings instead of just statistics, we need to know much more. We want to learn about their personalities, their occupations, their leisure activities, and their interactions in their communities. The more “meat” we put on those bare-bones dates and numbers, the more those people who preceded us become real.

Free Genealogy Webinars are Just a Click Away!

Twelve months of mostly being at home has given many of us the chance to explore new ways of learning using our computers or tablets. Have you discovered the benefits of free webinars yet? Did you know you can watch thousands of digital recordings without any fees at all? Yes, sometimes there are advertisements, but they are relatively unobtrusive and easily passed over. By now, many of us also know that there are instructions online for just about anything we want to do. In fact, just last week, like magic, a two-minute YouTube video saved this writer a trip to the store and the price of a new pneumatic door closer when just a few squeezes of a piece of metal with a strong pair of pliers was all it needed. OK, that was fixer-upper stuff—what about our favorite hobby? Are there free webinars available on genealogy? Indeed there are, and here are some places you can start to look for them.