Old phonebooks and city directories have been incredibly helpful for me to figure out the story of my family. I was able to piece together that my third great grandfather had evicted his daughter, my g-great grandmother. (Here it helps to understand what addresses signified, and whether a move was up or down in the world, or a move out of financial distress.
The diary tip is really brilliant and will send me down a new path of exploration.
Finally, the photo of the aircrash site in this post is actually a quite famous pilgrimage for backpackers in Iceland. It is a very long hike to get there, and, when you get there... it's just the wreckage of a plane. Kind of like a lot of the family research we uncover!
I’ve had great success in calling up local historical societies and public libraries and just asking for help. I’ve found most of the archivists and librarians to be eager to help, excited by a new challenge and willing to go deep into the back rooms to uncover gold. They’re such unsung hero’s!
Old phonebooks and city directories have been incredibly helpful for me to figure out the story of my family. I was able to piece together that my third great grandfather had evicted his daughter, my g-great grandmother. (Here it helps to understand what addresses signified, and whether a move was up or down in the world, or a move out of financial distress.
The diary tip is really brilliant and will send me down a new path of exploration.
Finally, the photo of the aircrash site in this post is actually a quite famous pilgrimage for backpackers in Iceland. It is a very long hike to get there, and, when you get there... it's just the wreckage of a plane. Kind of like a lot of the family research we uncover!
"Kind of like a lot of the family research we uncover!" Indeed!
I’ve had great success in calling up local historical societies and public libraries and just asking for help. I’ve found most of the archivists and librarians to be eager to help, excited by a new challenge and willing to go deep into the back rooms to uncover gold. They’re such unsung hero’s!
Also contacting librarians online at college libraries can be effective.