UpFront with NGS: Colonial

Showing posts with label Colonial. Show all posts

22 May 2015

FREE Access to Select Military Databases at American Ancestors (now through 27 May 2015)

As we get ready to celebrate the Memorial Day, it’s a great time to think about our ancestors who served – many of them in conflicts decades or centuries before we were born. If you have New England colonial or revolutionary war era ancestors, this FREE access offer might interest you.

To commemorate Memorial Day and make your ancestral research more memorable this holiday, American Ancestors and NEHGS are offering FREE ACCESS to two of our most important military databases NOW through Wednesday, May 27 to Guest Users, available exclusively on AmericanAncestors.org.

Access requires your registration as a FREE Guest User. If you are already a Guest User, sign in to start using these databases now. Read about the benefits.

· Colonial Soldiers and Officers in New England, 1620-1775

· Massachusetts Revolutionary War Pensioners’ Receipts 1799-1807

· Massachusetts Revolutionary War Pensioners’ Receipts 1829-1837

Read more about the offer and databases here.

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

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Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

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24 April 2015

American Numismatic Society Partners with HathiTrust

Growing up I was a stamp collector. I spent many many hours trying to find inexpensive stamps from around the world for my albums. They were a great way to learn geography and about changing geopolitical lines.

Coins and currency became a part of my consciousness when I heard a talk several years ago about all the different currencies that were used before the Federal Reserve was created and “a” currency resulted. It was one of the best talks I’d ever heard in terms of truly being eye-opening about an element of historical context that I previously just had no awareness of.

The talk was reinforced as I did more and more land research and found deeds where Spanish milled dollars, current money, specie, Virginia currency and many more different types of currency were used in these land transactions.

Basically, it really opened my eyes to the idea of not assuming that just because we have “a” currency (of course, Bitcoin and other purveyors of digital currency are working to change the landscape and that’s a topic for another day), that doesn’t mean it was always that way.

So, a news item “ANS Partners with HathiTrust for Open Access Publications” caught my eye.

In a sweeping effort to make its older and out-of-print publications available to the public as Open Access, The American Numismatic Society has partnered with HathiTrust (http://www.hathitrust.org/about). As a result of this partnership scans of nearly 550 ANS titles – including the American Journal of Numismatics, Numismatic Literature, Numismatic Notes and Monographs, and stand-alone monographs have become fully readable and downloadable to anyone who wants them under a Creative Commons, non-commercial, attribution, share-alike license.

In fact, a search on colonial currency and related terms brings up quite a few resources.

Did any particular article or publication regarding Numismatics catch your eye?

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog. Any opinions expressed by guest authors are their own and do not necessarily reflect the view of NGS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Unless indicated otherwise or clearly an NGS Public Relations piece, Upfront with NGS posts are written by Diane L Richard, editor, Upfront with NGS.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Want to learn more about interacting with the blog, please read Hyperlinks, Subscribing and Comments -- How to Interact with Upfront with NGS Blog posts!

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26 December 2012

18th-century French and Spanish records shed new light on United States history

Part of the catalog for the French Superior Council holdings

Artdaily.org posted a neat article about the archives held by the Louisiana Historical Center (New Orleans).

A marathon project is under way in New Orleans to digitize thousands of time-worn 18th-century French and Spanish legal papers that historians say give the first historical accounts of slaves and free blacks in North America. Yellowed page by yellowed page, archivists are scanning the 220,000 manuscript pages from the French Superior Council and Spanish Judiciary between 1714 and 1803 in an effort to digitize, preserve, translate and index Louisiana's colonial past and in the process help re-write American history ... It's at the heart of a wave of research tracing American roots beyond the English colonies and into Spain, France and Africa.

... It wasn't until the early 1900s for serious preservation and translation work to begin. The Works Progress Administration then patched up pages with tape (chemical from the tape is now eating at pages) and wrote English synopses. But past archivists and translators also buried important documents. Entire chunks — most importantly documents dealing with slave trials and women — were conspicuously left out of consideration. In one memorable case, archivists censored a case about a soldier accused of bestiality.

Read the full article.

It is always neat to see articles on non-genealogical blogs and sites regarding material that is relevant to the research we do! I like to think that inside each historian there is a budding genealogist!

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NGS does not imply endorsement of any outside advertiser or other vendors appearing in this blog.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

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Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com

20 February 2012

Mother-daughter letters open digital window to Colonial era

There are nothing like letters or journals to give us a sense of those we are researching and the life they led. Soon, the letters of Colonial South Carolina’s most prominent mother and daughter will become part of a nationally recognized digital project through the University of Virginia Press and its electronic imprint arm, Rotunda.

Read about this project.

Are there other projects like this we should be aware of?

Did any of your ancestors leave an extensive collection of correspondence or journals?

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Republication of UpFront articles is permitted and encouraged for non-commercial purposes without express permission from NGS. Please drop us a note telling us where and when you are using the article. Express written permission is required if you wish to republish UpFront articles for commercial purposes. You may send a request for express written permission to UpFront@ngsgenealogy.org. All republished articles may not be edited or reworded and must contain the copyright statement found at the bottom of each UpFront article.

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Follow NGS via Facebook, YouTube, Vimeo and Twitter.

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Think your friends, colleagues, or fellow genealogy researchers would find this blog post interesting? If so, please let them know that anyone can read past UpFront with NGS posts or subscribe!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Suggestions for topics for future UpFront with NGS posts are always welcome. Please send any suggested topics to UpfrontNGS@mosaicrpm.com.