Genealogy Reviews Online

Western State Historical Societies

Find Your Ancestors In History

This is the final post on state historical societies.  In case you missed them, here are links to my East Coast State Historical Societies and State Historical Societies - Continued posts.   For part of this post I used the site at U.S. State Historical Societies and State Archives, but found a couple of the links were bad, so I guess writing this is actually worthwhile.   

I was a little disappointed with the western state societies.  Very few had online resources and I think only one had a genealogy link.  I also found that the Utah State History site is actually a division of the State government, but only has a couple of online collections - this surprised me because I figured this site would be the best of them all.  If I had to pick a favorite it would be the Oregon Historical Society.  They have more online content then any of the other western states, but still doesn't come close to those in the mid-west or east.  Hopefully I hit all 50 states.

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Resources, Resources, Resources

Access Griffith's Valuation, Irish Wills and Irish Census records on Irish Origins

I received emails this week from a couple of very helpful readers who pointed me to websites that are jam packed with links that could be helpful to genealogists or anyone interested in history.  The first email came from Joy Rich who told me about the U.S. State Historical Societies and State Archives Directory.   This is a great resource that lists historical societies, archives and some genealogy societies for each state.  I randomly went through the site clicking about 15-20 links and they all worked.  After getting this link from Joy, I almost decided not to do the third part of my State Historical Society series since they were all listed in this directory, but I had so much fun exploring the history of each state that I'm going to do it anyway - only now I have an easy way of finding the historical societies I write about.

The second email came from the folks at the Online Education Database who pointed me to a link called 250+ Killer Digital Libraries and Archives.  This is a wonderful resource that lists some state archive sites, but the best part is it includes digital collections from colleges and universities.  I have found that colleges and universities have some of the best online resources for history and genealogy I've seen.  The list isn't all inclusive - some university sites I visit aren't on this list, but there are many others I wasn't aware of so this link is definitely worth a look.

I absolutely love getting email and comments from the few readers I have...especially readers who share tasty resource links like the two above.

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State Historical Societies - Continued

Download Original Historical Documents

I was surprised at the reception my East Coast Historical Societies post got, so I decided to continue moving west (by "reception" I mean the number of times visitors clicked on the post...I don't get too many comments, but my traffic is growing).  This is actually a fun process because I never realized how much effort these societies put into exploring the histories of their states.  As I said in my last post, some are better then others, but all have something to offer.  I've enjoyed learning things about individual states that I otherwise never would have explored if I hadn't created these posts.  In this group of states, my favorite is The Wisconsin Historical Society.  I like it because it's visually appealing, has a large online collection, a genealogy link, and an online store.  My next post in this series will continue all the way across the rest of the country to the west cost. 

East Coast State Historical Societies

Court, Land, and Probate Records

This past weekend I was cleaning up the genealogy bookmarks in my Firefox  web browser and found one for the Maryland Historical Society site.  I thought it was pretty good and decided to check out a few other state societies.  Before I knew it, I'd collected links for the entire east coast and thought I'd share them here.  The best of this group in my opinion were the New England historical societies with my favorite being Massachusetts because it had the biggest digital presence.  Of note, I couldn't find an online presence for the North Carolina Historical Society.  What follows is a list of links to these societies for you to explore if you wish: