Somewhat Unusual Sources and Why I Think We Should Use Them – 52 Ancestors # 38

Over the years I have written a number of posts that included the use of somewhat unusual sources for some of my information.  I haven’t always highlighted the unusual source but more often just wrote about an ancestor or a family I was interested in.  So here in one place is a list of places I have found to be useful in solving some of my conundrums or adding to my knowledge about a person or family.  Caveat: some of the sources have come to me from “hints” like online trees that I have then followed up on.  These may not be as easy to find without a trail of crumbs to lead you to the source.

College and University Archives:  In looking for information about someone’s attendance or graduation from a school/program, contacting the Archives of the school with direct questions has been helpful to me.  I have gotten copies of a year’s schedule (when classes started, when breaks were, when graduations happened, etc), transcripts, yearbook pages and pictures.  If the Archives office doesn’t have what you are looking for they can tell you who does (or is likely to) and contact information for that person or office.  I was even able to get a digital image of the daguerreotype of the 1853 graduates ladies class from Oberlin.

Special Collections (College/University Library):  I discovered that the Special Collections of a school’s library can contain all sorts of interesting and useful items.  I think I discovered this through the Sweet family collection, but I have also found photograph collections of the Davies mansion at Yale and a microfilm of the original 1850s diary or scrapbook kept by J.W. Booth in his first foray into gold mining in California at the U.C.Berkeley library.  (They had a transcription of it, that I got a copy of, and I was able to inter-library loan the microfilm and digitize it myself.)

City Directories:   City directory collections turn out to provide help in tracking the location and changes in location of ancestors, and also to sometimes help add relatives to a family by their common listings.  They also help fill in information about people between census years, and add information (or hints anyway) about occupations.  I have written briefly about the Scheir family and using city directories to learn more about this family.  I originally looked in city directories for Milwaukee (where I knew some of them had been) on a trip to Washington, DC and the Library of Congress which is probably the single best repository of city directories in the U.S.  There are other places to find directories, however, including ancestry.com, familysearch.org, the Allen County Public Library, and your local library or the one in the location you want to track (most libraries have at least local directories and often some others as well).

Rutherford B. Hayes Presidential Library and Museums:  I first discovered this site for its obituary collection (mostly Ohio, but since I have lots of family from Ohio, it was pretty exciting).  I would still say this is a good reason to check out the site, since they have added to the obituaries over the years and do include neighboring towns and newspapers.  The index includes other materials, from newspapers and other sources (like local public libraries), about a range of events such as court cases, and family collections.  They now have the ability to email you a digital copy of many things, for a charge.  There are also many other resources at this site, from President Hayes’s interests and personal library and collections as well as other sources such as collections of Civil War letters, etc.  At least some of the obituary collection is also available from ancestry.com, but I think their collection doesn’t get updated as frequently as the Hayes site is.  In addition, if you want a copy (paper or digital) you have to go to the Hayes site to order it, or to be directed to the library that holds the original.  So my preference is to start at the Hayes site, unless an ancestry search shows me that there is information there that I want to see.

eBay and eBay Alerts:  I have also written about searching on eBay and using eBay alerts previously.  One of my great finds was a collection of family pictures (not a direct line, alas), the Shelton family.  I have also found high school year books, including my mother’s by using alerts on the site.  I also found my father’s high school yearbook and one (I thought) for my mother-in-law which turned out not to include her.  I first learned about using eBay and the alert system from listening to Lisa Louise Cooke’s podcasts where she has talked a number of times about finding pictures and ephemera belonging to family members.  And this reminds me that I need to revise a couple of the ones I’m still using.  Having alerts for places as well as more specific ones (like a family name or school) can net you interesting materials!