What is GeneaSpy?

GeneaSpy is an avid genealogist who attends national, regional, and local genealogical conferences, to learn about genealogy.

Tuesday, January 27, 2015

The Southwestern Historical Quarterly

Do you have ancestors in Texas? How about Louisiana, Alabama, Arizona or surrounding States – even Latin America? If you do, then The Southwestern Historical Quarterly might have a surprise waiting for you! The publication has been digitized and made available for free on The Portal to Texas History website. The digitized journal spans the years 1897 through 2004 and “… has been a major source for most of the textbook accounts of Texas and Southwest history.”[1]

 To search inside The Southwestern Historical Quarterly is quite simple. Just enter your search term(s) into the search box and hit “enter”. You will be taken to a “results” page. From there click on one of the results and you’ll be taken to the volume of interest. You will notice your search word(s) in another search box in the upper right side of the page already. Simply click on “search” one more time to reveal which page(s) they appear on. Click on the image to open the page and voilĂ ! The nice thing is the word(s) you searched for are highlighted in yellow for locating quickly. 

Source:http://www.library.unt.edu/sites/default/files/images/featured-item/the_portal_to_texas_history.jpg 

 As I was researching this database, I found an extensive and in-depth article on the Confederate soldiers who emigrated to Latin America and in particular, Brazil after the Civil War. My own paternal 2nd. great grand uncle, Brig. Gen. Alexander Travis Hawthorn, emigrated to Brazil abt. 1870 and lived there for almost a decade before moving back. This article entitled, “The Confederate Exodus to Latin America”, can be found in Volume XXXIX, No. 3, pages 161-199. [2] 

 Such a wealth of knowledge within these pages await you, and this is just the tip of the iceberg that The Portal of Texas History has amassed! I myself haven’t spent enough time prying into the inner depths of this mega historical website. [3] Truly, it is as big as Texas is!

_________________________________________________________________________________

[1] Southwestern Historical Quarterly (http://texashistory.unt.edu/explore/collections/SWHQ/ : accessed 25 Jan 2015), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association, Denton, Texas.

 [2] Texas State Historical Association. The Southwestern Historical Quarterly, Volume 39, July 1935 - April, 1936, Eugene C. Barker, editor, Journal/Magazine/Newsletter, 1936; (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth101095/  : accessed 25 Jan 2015), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, http://texashistory.unt.edu; crediting Texas State Historical Association, Denton, Texas.

[3] The Portal to Texas History (http://texashistory.unt.edu/ : accessed 25 Jan 2015).


Tuesday, January 20, 2015

World War I Gold Star Database at the Alabama Department of Archives and History

 The Alabama Department of Archives and History is the mecca for historical information and original documents in Alabama. There is such a wealth of information that I will be posting more deep links in the future. For now, I want to tell you about the World War I Gold Star Database found online there.

 The Gold Star files are a collection of biographical data collected from the family of deceased World War I soldiers from Alabama or who had been awarded distinguished service recognition. The original files were created during the 1920's by the ADAH. Today, they have been digitalized and are online at the ADAH website.


Alabama Department of Archives and History
Photo by the GeneaSpy

 They have a great search page which you can enter a lot of different information. Besides the popular surname search field, there is a county search field which I find very useful for finding friends or other family members that lived near your person of interest. After you find a person of interest to you, hopefully that person has a link to the right that will take you to a letter, picture, or if your lucky, a bioform (sometimes under "other info") which is a form that was filled out by a family member.

 As I browsed different names and clicked on them, I found one that struck my eye - Michael Assad Zataney of Jefferson County. I clicked on the "Other Info" and found someone filled out the "Biographical Memoranda". It is quite interesting and I will let you explore it for yourself. So, even if you didn't have any relatives that died in WWI, you might have a chance to find a friend or neighbor to your ancestor. 

 Happy hunting!

Sources:  http://archives.state.al.us/