Post Civil War: Grand Army of the Republic (GAR)

The Civil War had ended. The surviving Union military personnel had returned home. Some healthy, many injured or otherwise disabled. It was a time for mourning the loss of many fellow military members. Coming home was difficult as the soldier or sailor had changed and so had their family, neighbors, and employers. What was missing […]

Recent Minnesota Historical and Cultural Heritage Large Grants 

I am always thrilled when historical organizations post lists of awards and grants to organizations. A few of the grants in Minnesota are listed after this press release excerpt. Shelving for collections, ADA access, preservation of historical buildings, histories, and other items are on the recipients list. Many more can be viewed at https://www.mnhs.org/media/news/legacy-amendment-large-grants-fy25 City […]

MyHeritage November Early Black Friday Sale

Starting today, 19 November, MyHeritage DNA is available at a great price at https://www.myheritage.com/dna/. As MyHeritage says “With detailed ethnicity results covering 2,114 regions, users can explore where their ancestors came from and connect with relatives around the world through advanced DNA matching. And with the most comprehensive set of genetic genealogy tools available, there’s even more to […]

Minnesota Digital Library: Beltrami County oral histories online

A recent newsletter from the University of Minnesota reminded me to look at other parts of the Minnesota Digital Library. The MDL is best described directly from its website. MDL “supports discovery and education through access to unique digital collections shared by cultural heritage organizations from across the state of Minnesota. Our contributors include libraries, […]

October is Family History Month, American Archives Month, National German Heritage Month, and many other awareness designations

Every day and every month I learn about some other event, designation, or awareness label in states, provinces, countries, and I can’t keep track of them all. The three in the title of this post are examples of some that apply to me and my fellow history/genealogy researchers. These and others apply to people all […]

Board for Certification of Genealogists free webinar 17 Sept: “A Myriad of Slave Databases”

FREE BCG-SPONSORED WEBINAR “A Myriad of Slave Databases” by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, JD, LLM, CG, CGL, FASG Tuesday, September 17, 2024, 8:00 p.m. (EDT) I know this is a last-minute posting. Sorry about that, my fault totally. BCG’s next free monthly webinar in conjunction with Legacy Family Tree Webinars is “A Myriad of Slave Databases” by LaBrenda Garrett-Nelson, […]

Webtember: Walsh and Griffins of Winona County, Minnesota.

If you attended my presentation yesterday (Friday, 13 September) as part of Legacy Family Tree’s Webtember, you learned a little about a maternal Great Grandaunt Johanna (Walsh) Healy Griffin. My session was titled “The Neighbors Knew: Strategies for Finding YOUR Ancestral Details in THEIR Records.” A slide toward the end of the hour showed an […]

Ancestry.com special offers this Labor Day weekend

Labor Day weekend in the U.S. means more special prices from online genealogy companies. . Ancestry has announced a sale on 6-month subscriptions, DNA testing, and the new Pro Tools. Check the details https://www.ancestry.com/. Ancestry has been posting on major social media platforms about this. These offers expire on Monday, 3 September 2024.  

Chronicling America Historic Newspapers adds maps showing nearby newspapers

Chronicling America, which includes fantastic and free access to digitized newspapers, grows constantly and is gearing up for a whole new website. It includes newspapers that are digitized by the National Digital Newspaper Program (NDNP) which works with newspaper repositories around the United States. It operates under The National Endowment for the Humanities (NEH) and […]