Researching Ancestors While Reading Biographies and Historical Accounts

Not very many people are so lucky as to have ancestors with published biographies on the shelves of every library in town.  In fact, not too many people have ancestors mentioned in history books. I should know....I've been researching our families since 2002.  Seems like yesterday when I picked up an old photo in a relative's box of belongings and wondered...Who are these people, and why do I look like them?

And so you start to wonder a bit about family of long ago, those that you have never met.
But that is where life gets interesting.  It's time to do some investigative reading.

Looking into the lives of our ancestors, we need to pick out every place that they lived, every school that they attended, the churches that they visited on Sundays with family and any military and occupational experiences they had.

Look at all the possibilities that you have to gather more information into their lives.  Research the schools that they attended.  Google books on their churches.  Find histories written about the towns, villages, counties and townships in which they lived.  Research the  history of the military units in which they served.  Find the places of employment and read about the history of the company or corporation.

Besides reading books on all of the above, search for news articles in newspapers and periodicals that may have stories about those schools, churches, companies, etc.  Your ancestors probably knew many of the people who are named in all of these sources.  Now you know a little more about your ancestor.

AncestorStuff.com is a good place to start.  Our newly purchased company has gone through quite a change in the past 60 days.  Redecorated website, blogs, social media....yes it's all been a lot of work.  But we are not done with the changes yet.  We will begin to write newsletters to our subscribers FREE of charge on a monthly basis.  If interested, go to our website, www.ancestorstuff.com, and sign up for the newsletter...we will send you a FREE 15 Generation Chart (two-sided) when you leave your address on the subscriber sheet.

State by State Research : Colorado

www.google.com/images

Continuing with my review of state history and genealogy research, let's explore Colorado.


Colorado Historic Newspapers Collection  www.coloradohistoricnewspapers.org

Wow, over 200 newspapers are searchable at this site.  That is impressive.  Let's see what I can find.

The years range from 1859 to 1966.  Not too shabby.  You can search, browse by title, name or place. There is also a topics page, listings are  alphabetically arranged, which helps a lot when you looking for that certain event that could have dozens of articles written and posted.  The articles are arranged by newspapers and date of publication.  Now that makes things easier.

I looked up "Knife Throwing", and 20 articles suddenly appeared.  Cool.  Of course these are all from Colorado newspapers, but that is the neatest thing.  You can get much closer to a specific geographic area.

There are "Help" and "Forums" to help you with search suggestions.  But let's be honest, isn't it fun to just fumble around and do some hunting without help?  OK, ask for help if you want to.


Colorado State Archives  www.colorado.gov/archives

Looking for birth and death registers?  How about divorce indexes?  Probate, yep.  Other documents of naturalization, teacher licenses, tax lists, Supreme Court case files, etc. This site is for you if you have Colorado research  ambition...

Want Probate information? Go to Menu tab, scroll down to Public Records (or Genealogy....all roads lead to Rome you know), then scroll to Legal Records....scroll down to Probate. There is a list of Counties and the years that are held at the state archives. Only those cases prior to 1985 are listed.  But, not all of these records are at the archives.  You can order document copies.

Did I forget to mention Military records?  How about Penitentiary records? School records?

Folks, there is just so much on this website that I can't possibly write about all of it.  You will just have to visit it yourself.  But I promise you, you won't regret it...ever.  It would be nice if every state have such a  comprehensive collection such as  this.

Job well done, Colorado!

And let me remind you, Family Tree Magazine published an fantastic article about the many state websites available...I still have mine from December of 2011.  Be sure to visit Family Tree Magazine.com.  A great publication!