The publication unlocks key resources for anyone tracing New York City’s vast
history to leverage the hundreds of key collections housed at the Municipal Archives.
NEW YORK, NY — The New York Genealogical and Biographical Society (NYG&B) is pleased to announce the release of New York City Municipal Archives: An Authorized Guide for Family Historians.
The 245-page guide will make research at this vital facility far more approachable and will introduce researchers to many previously-unknown record collections housed there.
As one of the world’s largest repositories of city records, the holdings of the New York City Municipal Archives offer untold resources for those tracing the history of New Yok City and its families. But until now, it has remained difficult for anyone but the most experienced researcher to navigate more than the basics of this essential archive. This new guide, created with the assistance of the New York City Municipal Archives, will make it possible for genealogists, family historians or anyone researching New York City’s vast history to leverage the hundreds of key collections found there.
The New York City Municipal Archives: An Authorized Guide for Family Historians is available in print for $40 at
NewYorkFamilyHistory.org (members of the NYG&B receive a $10 discount and can also purchase an exclusive digital version alongside a paperback copy).
Trace your Eastern European ancestors from American shores back to the old country. This in-depth guide will walk you step-by-step through the exciting--and challenging--journey of finding your Polish, Czech, or Slovak roots. You'll learn how to identify immigrant ancestors, find your family's town of origin, locate key genealogical resources, decipher foreign-language records, and untangle the region's complicated history. The book also includes timelines, sample records, resource lists, and sample record request letters to aid your research.
Every genealogist needs this book, if they're serious about researching their family history. Family stories of all kinds, not just obituaries, can be found in newspapers. While major metropolitan newspapers are being digitized and placed online, many more are available for viewing on microfilm. Learn about the free newspaper databases, and discover which newspapers are covered in subscription databases. Also included is the first-ever state-by-state listing of libraries and genealogical societies that have indexed local newspapers, along with state digitized collections not found elsewhere, and microfilm collections for each state. Interested in family history? Start your research today!
I recently read the book entitled, "The Orphan Train" by Christina Baker Kline. This book is based on the historical event where under the welfare program over 250,000 children were relocated to foster homes in the Midwest between 1853 and 1929. Many came from eastern cities like New York due to overcrowded situations. This book takes a look at present day foster situation and compares it to the orphan trains. Molly, a Penobscot Indian will soon turn 18 and leave the foster care system. She meets Vivian an Irish immigrant who was an orphan train survivor and both orphans review their experience when they work together on cleaning out Vivian's attic. In this process they eventually free themselves from what memories haunt their past.
Mani Feniger wanted nothing to do with the relics of her mother's life before she escaped from Nazi Germany in 1936. But when the fall of the Berlin Wall exposed the buried secrets and startling revelations of her mother's past, she was drawn into an exploration-of history and family, individuality and identity, mothers and daughters-that would change her life forever. THE WOMAN IN THE PHOTOGRAPH is a riveting, beautifully written memoir that reminds readers of the power of truth, the choices that shape our lives, and the legacy we pass on to future generations. Mani's evocative book unfolds like a mystery. The story has a heartbeat and I found myself rooting for her and for her mother. -Sue Bender, author of Plain and Simple and Everyday Sacred
This all new 2011 edition of Lori Carangelo’s The Ultimate Search Book: Worldwide Adoption, Genealogy & Other Search Secrets, is the first new edition of this guide since 2002. As director of the organization Americans for Open Records, Ms. Carangelo has amassed considerable expertise in helping people, and especially birth parents, find their missing loved ones. Now, in the 2011 edition of The Ultimate Search Book, she shares the secrets to successful searching with a broader audience. Just how do search experts get past the wall of secrecy and roadblocks to their loved ones? How, in the case of adoptees, do they find someone without a prior knowledge of the name? It is these and other questions that this volume answers by providing "how to" search tips and resources--for free and for fee--for legally accessing information and for locating anyone in the U.S. and 200 other countries.
Maureen Taylor, The Photo Detective explores the history of toques and top hats, bowlers, and bonnets to add another dimension to understanding your family photographs Fanciful, frilly, and fascinating, women’s hats made a fashion statement. There were hundreds of choices available each season. And they came with names like Leghorns, Gainsborough’s, poke bonnets, and wide-awakes.Using the clues in this book, you’ll learn interesting facts about your ancestors by studying their photographs and the hats they wore for portraits.
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The Second World War was the defining conflict of the twentieth century and it is one of the most popular and fascinating areas for historical research - and for family historians. More records than ever are available to researchers whose relatives served during the war. And this new book by Phil Tomaselli is the perfect guide to how to locate and understand these sources - and get the most out of them. He explains how, and from where, service records can be obtained, using real examples showing what they look like and how to interpret them. He also examines records of the military units relatives might have served in so their careers can be followed in graphic detail. The three armed services are covered, along with the merchant navy, the Home Guard, civilian services, prisoners of war, gallantry and campaign medals, casualties, women's services and obscure wartime organizations. Also included are a glossary of service acronyms, information on useful websites, an introduction to the National Archives and details of other useful sources.
Google is the most powerful tool available worldwide for online research! With over 20 billion pages in Google's index of the Web, it's likely that some of them contain clues about your ancestors. Finding these pages, however, requires an understanding of filtering and other techniques that have never been explained to many computer users — until now! This book shows you how to tap the full potential of the Internet's most powerful free online service!
Noted geneaologist reveals what it is like to be a history detective using twenty-first-century techniques and technology, and discusses some of the cases she has solved, including the families of celebrities and work for the Army and the FBI.
A recent addition to our Genealogy collection this title gives you information on the collection of Puerto Rican records that are housed at NARA in New York City. To view the finding aide please click on the above title hyperlink.
This concise guide to naval history and naval records is essential reading and reference for anyone researching the fascinating story of Britain's navy and the men and women who served in it. Whether you are interested in the career of an individual seaman, finding out about a medal winner or just want to know more about a particular ship, campaign or operation, this book will point you in the right direction. Simon Fowler assumes the reader has little prior knowledge of the navy and its history. His book shows you how to trace an officer, petty officer or rating from the seventeenth century up to the 1960s using records at the National Archives and elsewhere.
When it comes to your tracing your family tree online, you need the right tools to get the job done! In The Genealogist’s... Google Toolbox, renowned genealogy podcaster Lisa Louise Cooke help you stuff your genealogy toolbox with FREE state-of-the-art Internet tools that are built to search, translate, message, and span the globe. You’ll travel outside the genealogy community and straight to the folks who dominate the online world: Google.
Leslie Albrecht Huber's ancestors were journey takers, leaving their homes in Germany, Sweden, and England behind to sail to the US and start new lives here. Huber sets out to trace these journeys and to understand her family - who they were and what mattered to them. As she follows in their footsteps, walking the paths they walked and looking over the land they farmed, she finds herself on a journey she hadn't expected. Based on thousands of hours of research, Huber recreates the immigration experience in a way that captures both its sweeping historical breadth and its intimately personal consequences.
Throughout her life, Luxenberg’s mother, Beth, reveled in her status as an only child. Then, a few years before her death in 1999—and utterly out of the blue—she admitted to having a mentally and physically disabled younger sister named Annie, who died in 1972. Beth’s failing health precluded Luxenberg and his siblings from learning any more. After Beth’s passing, Luxenberg set out in search of answers. His dual roles as reporter and son proved both blessing and curse; the journalist dug furiously for facts, while the son wondered if long-buried secrets were best kept that way. His questions were many: What prompted Annie’s commitment, at age 21, to Eloise Hospital, southeastern Michigan’s sprawling psychiatric facility? Why was there next to no record of her early years? Most baffling of all, why did Beth, two years Annie’s senior, refuse for so long to acknowledge her sibling’s existence? Armed with superb investigative skills and relentless determination, Washington Post senior editor Luxenberg tracked down remaining family and friends and interviewed an exhaustive list of experts who might shed light on Annie’s plight. Part memoir, part mystery, part history of the mental-health movement, Annie’s Ghosts is a fascinating account of a life lived in the shadows and a family beset by despair.
An extended Italian immigrant family clings to community life amid tragedy, the Spanish flu, Prohibition, and the Great Depression. A broken Polish immigrant family leaves a legacy of heartbreak, separation, Civilian Conservation Corps redemption, and World War II heroism. From these dissimilar backgrounds emerges a quintessential American family, one whose members embody the conflicting social movements of their times: a staunchly Catholic Polish immigrant U.S. Marine Corps father, an emotionally effusive Italian mother, an Oliver North son, a Hillary Clinton daughter, a mentally ill sister, a jock brother, a lesbian rocker, and a gay male activist. In an age of bitter cultural polarization, Oh, Beautiful: An American Family in the 20th Century celebrates what has kept America together. This true story is an engrossing portrait of an American family and an evocative documentation of nearly 100 years of American history.
