The Library
A place to bag some family history resources. It provides
• Links to helpful web sites
• Articles and books that illustrate the history of our ancestors and their times
• Reference material, such as city directories
Sit back with a steaming cup of coffee, or sit up with a pencil and pad...in this library you can wear pajamas or tortoise shell glasses, whatever suits your fancy.
Vital Records First place to look for basic biographical information such as birth date and place, marriage, death, and census or city directory listings.
- Family Search A Church of Latter Day Saints web site that has a wealth of genealogy info
- Ancestry A genealogy site that is the gold standard of info and hosts a multitude of family trees that can help direct your research. Note: this is a paid subscription site, but many libraries offer access for free.
- Seeking Michigan Source of Michigan death certificates for decedents between 1897 and 1920
- Find a Grave Grave sites and gravestone photos, plus sometimes a good source for biographical info
- Exploring Scotland's Places Starting place for finding a given farmsite in Scotland. Type the farm or homestead name into the search box.
- Scottish Ordinance Survey Maps Useful for pinpointing farms where the relatives lived.
An example is this Old Cumnock Map centered on McCrie homesteads (Roadside and Glaisnock Lots) - London Charles Booth's 'Descriptive Map of London Poverty' from 1898/99. Includes neighborhood where Bessie Estall's family lived.
- London Another Charles Booth 'Descriptive Map of London Poverty' but with explanations of the color coding
- London Index to several historical maps of London
- London Bartholomew's 1909 map shows structures where Bessie Estall's family lived
- Ontario Farmstead maps of the 1880s in Ontario, Canada
- Michigan Farmstead maps of the 1880s
- Estall Bessie Estall's (aka Estelle's) family as researched by Kim Baldacchino
- McCrie William McCrie's family as researched by Doug Boylan (note: the tree is hosted on ancestry.com, requiring a paid subscription to view)
- Scotland Commerical Directory of 1837 online
- Ayrshire Directory of 1851-1852 (22 MB file, lengthy loading time) or online at Scottish Post Office Directories
- Detroit Street Number Conversions in 1921 (57 MB file, lengthy loading time)
- Detroit Directory Entries for the Schrotzberger family, 1882-1922 (77 MB file, lengthy loading time)
- Stratford, Ontario, Directory of 1905-1906 (12 MB file, lengthy loading time) or online at Vernon's City of Stratford Directory
- The Statistical Accounts of Scotland, 1834-45 online. Click through to the county and parish of interest on the left side of the page to read a detailed history, topography, and contemporary account of the area.
- Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, Vol 1 (from Abbey to Jura), 1851 (57 MB file, lengthy loading time) or online at Topographical Dictionary of Scotland
- Topographical Dictionary of Scotland, Vol 2 (from Keanlochbervie to Zetland), 1851 (62MB file, lengthy loading time) or online at Topographical Dictionary of Scotland
- Workhouses Overview of workhouses in England. Web link takes you to the section on Bethnal Green in London, where the Estall family resided at the turn of the twentieth century
- British Listed Buildings Database of historic buildings and structures in the United Kingdom. Provides age, uses, and histories of buildings that in some cases are related to family history.
- Life of Archibald Gardner A history of Margaret Livingston's family and her Mormon husband, the founder of Alvinston, Ontario. Includes chapters on Neil Livingston/Janet McNair, and letters from Margaret's brother Duncan relating Livingston family life in Ontario.
- Alvinston, Ontario, History A history of this small town to which the Livingston, Campbell, McKellar, and other Scottish families immigrated in the mid-1800s.
- UK (including Scotland) Census On-line database of census transcriptions. Helpful for finding relatives' occupations, places of residence, birth locations, family and neighbor configurations.
- Scotland's Historical Tax Rolls On-line images of 1797's assessments for duties on horses and on clocks and watches
- 1860 Tax Valuation for Kilskeery Parish, Tyrone, Ireland Listing of tax payers and their locations in the parish where John Brown and Susan Rutledge were married in 1856. Helpful in researching their families, especially in light of Ireland's destroyed censuses of that period.
- Griffith's Valuation of 1860 Ireland Searchable database of the 1860 Tax Valuation in Ireland that provides images of the Valuation pages and detailed maps associated with the searched names.