Long before St. Louis came to be called the "Gateway to the West," Ohio played a similar role. America's first frontier, Ohio was both a destination and a transit point for tens of thousands of settlers heading west from the original 13 states in the early 19th century.The state's census, military, tax and transit records remain a treasure-trove of information for people nationwide, making Ohio an important starting point for tracing family trees. The Ohio Genealogical Society bills itself as the nation's largest such group, with 5,500 members (and chapters in all 88 counties). It recently opened a new headquarters and research library in Bellville in Richland County.
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While people rush to get the latest iPhones and iPads, the deceased can also enjoy these trendy high-tech devices, although theirs will be made of paper. With the Qingming Festival, or Tomb Sweeping Day, a time for paying respect to the ancestors, falling on April 5, some shops in Guangzhou selling sacrificial offerings have put paper-made versions of Apple products on their shelves.
Vandals apparently overturned more than 50 grave markers over the weekend at the city's historic Old Kirk burial ground located at the rear of Second Congregational Church. Keith Priesing, a church member and the cemetery's caretaker, called the damage the result of "malicious vandalism."
In a press release today the the National Park Service announced that the Little Bighorn Battlefield archives and collections will be temporarily relocated to a storage facility in Arizona. The move is to to protect and preserve the historic objects and records while the NPS works to establish a more secure and permanent repository at the battlefield.
The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has launched a special campaign which seeks to identify more than 1,100 photographs of children who were displaced and photographed shortly after WWII, in an effort to track down their relatives and find out together their stories.
Today, Oliver Morley, the newly appointed Chief Executive and Keeper, The National Archives, launches the new Business Plan for 2011-2015 entitled 
A 100-pound tombstone from the 1950s was discovered outside a Greensburg Walmart, but how it got there remains unclear. Ed Barbish told WTAE Channel 4 Action News' Jennifer Miele that he found the tombstone while his company was installing electrical lines.
Actor Gwyneth Paltrow’s ancestral search, which will be told in a new episode of the NBC TV program Who Do You Think You Are?, might not have happened if not for Jewish Records Indexing – Poland (JRI Poland).
A long trek through the Pakistan Secretariat takes one to the National Archives of Pakistan (NAP) building. But while a treasure trove of documents awaits historians and researchers, the extended process of procuring and then reading them with faulty microfilm viewers is tasking.
Philippine workers at a swimming pool site stumbled on a mass grave containing 14 skeletons believed to be prisoners of war from the Japanese occupation in World War II, police said Sunday.
Maryland lawmakers and representatives of the French national railroad say they’ve reached a deal that would force a greater accounting of the railroad’s role in the Holocaust and allow its subsidiary to seek a lucrative MARC train contract.
Almost 120 years after the Abarbanel Midrash, the forerunner of Israel’s National Library, was founded, the country’s largest library is embarking on a dramatic renewal project that will include a new building and a vast digitization project to make thousands of the library’s manuscripts and books available online.
The Federation of Genealogical Societies, the National Archives, and the genealogical community have started a project to digitize the War of 1812 pension files—a fitting beginning to the bicentennial commemoration of this important war. Many know how information-rich military pension files can be, with comrades and family members providing service, family and personal data.
Some new icons have been added to the 'Individual Search' results list.
Village officials in Plato, Missouri are trying to figure out how to make the most of being declared by the U.S. Census Bureau as the population center of the United States. The village, which is so small that its employees are volunteers and the town board meets in the bank basement, will create a 12-inch Missouri stone marker to celebrate its census distinction.
Six letters written by 19th century composer and pianist Frederic Chopin, thought to have been lost since World War II, were Thursday revealed by the Polish museum dedicated to the musical icon.
At the age of 95, a World War Two U.S. veteran has made a shock discovery - he is not an American citizen. Leeland Davidson found out he was classified a Canadian when he tried to get a driver’s licence so he could visit relatives in the country.
After a successful first year last year, ClassicBoat announces the National Historic Ships Photography Competition 2011.
The first volume of The Southern Guardian has completed scanning, and every issue from the year 1911 is now available to read online.
28 Irish Americans share the same Irish ancestor as President Obama. Just four years ago Obama learned of his Irish ancestor Falmouth Kearney who fled Ireland during the Great Famine and came to the United States.
While it is well known that the current Labor leader, The Hon Kristina Keneally was born in Las Vegas on 19 December 1968 to an American father and an Australian mother, it’s not widely known that the Premier’s mother, Catherine Nary Powell, originated from Brisbane and is the daughter of William Powell and Patricia Anderson.
As the 70th anniversary of the Belfast Blitz approaches the city prepares to remember all those who perished. April 15, 1941 was a night when almost 1,000 people were killed during a prolonged bombing campaign by the Germans. Belfast city was a target during second World War due to its large shipyard and aircraft manufacture base.
Whoever buried Elizabeth B. Fraser in 1895 (aged 36 years, nine months) picked a secluded and lovely spot in farmland north of Gatineau, overlooking a steep ravine and little creek. Her grave keeps company with some 30 others, Barbers and Langfords and Davidsons who settled and farmed here from the early 1800s on.
An announcement by the Ellis Island Foundation: "There is an urgent need to support 
Archivists from the Library of Virginia will visit Virginia Beach and Norfolk next month to scan privately held Civil War family documents into the state’s digital collection.
The small Greek island of Kastellorizo was estimated in 2004 to have produced some 30,000 Australians – a figure which in 2011 is considerably larger. A Perth genealogist, Allan Cresswell, whose mother came from Kastellorizo, started work several years ago on mapping out the genealogy of the island and has stored all the data on a 
Archaeologists have uncovered an ancient burial ground in Kent where around a hundred people were laid to rest. The site - dating back to the late Roman era - is on the former Hallets garage site in Canterbury's St Dunstan's.
It was one of the biggest and probably the bloodiest battle ever fought on British soil. Such was its ferocity almost 1 per cent of the English population was wiped out in a single day. Yet mention the Battle of Towton to most people and you would probably get a blank stare.
Funium is set to release an online social game next month -- similar to "Farmville" or "Mafia Wars" -- that deals with real people, real history and real experiences, starring you and your ancestors.
A New Zealand soldier's Bible - lost and found in the trenches in World War One - will be returned to his homeland this week by the family of the British soldier who found it. On April 12 1918, Herbert Hodgson fell into a shell hole during an attack near Messines in Belgium. There he found a Bible encrusted with mud.
GeneaNet 2011 Has Launched!
An open letter from Friends of the Georgia Archives Chair, Virginia Shadron: The Fiscal Year 2012 budget that passed the Georgia House of Representatives on March 11 as HB 78 includes budget reductions that could result in the State Archives closing its doors to the public.
World War II Staff Sgt. Joe R. Sanchez has finally been returned home after being classified as Missing in Action for more than six decades. Sanchez served in the 575th Bombardment Squadron, 391st Bombardment Group, 9th Air Force. His plane was shot down on Dec. 23, 1944. The soldier's remains were identified by using DNA from his niece. The fallen hero was finally returned to Los Angeles on Wednesday.
For two centuries, more than 6,000 manuscripts and codices of the Roman College, the current Gregorian University in Rome, were kept hidden behind a wall. It's now been made available to the public through the cataloging and digitizing efforts by its new director, the Argentinian Martin Morales.
The GeneaNet website will be down for maintenance on March 21, 2011, from 9:00am to 12:00am (Paris, France, Time Zone) as we prepare 
The world’s largest free genealogy search engine, 
In 1845, two ill-fated British ships headed for the Canadian Arctic in the hope of discovering the Northwest Passage to the Pacific Ocean. More than two decades later, the nearly complete skeleton of one of the explorers was recovered from a shallow, stone-covered grave on King William Island in the Canadian Arctic.
A 700-year-old letter linked to Sir William Wallace was likely to have been in his possession, an international team of experts has agreed. The group was asked by Culture Minister Fiona Hyslop to investigate the origins of the document, which is currently held in The National Archives in London.
Nearly a century after his death, a Canadian who died fighting in the First World War and whose remains were only recently identified was buried Tuesday in France, Canada's defense minister said. Private Thomas Lawless was buried with full military honors at La Chaudiere Military Cemetery in Vimy, France. Members of his family participated in the interment ceremony.
Coats of arms on old gravestones could hold the key to tracing ancestors, according to a north-east specialist. Portsoy-based Charles Burnett gave a talk about heraldry at yesterday’s meeting of the Moray Burial Ground Research Group (MBGRG).
Librarians at the New York Public Library said they are digitizing their collection of more than 40,000 menus from city restaurants dating back to 1843. Rebecca Federman, librarian for the library's culinary collection, said the menus range from an 1843 list of foods served by the Astor House to a 2010 menu from a local Chipotle, the New York Post reported Monday.
In a strange discovery Sunday morning, employees at Bertucci’s found a tombstone in their parking lot. According to Woburn Police, Officer Mark Shaughnessy was dispatched to 17 Commerce Way for the odd discovery at 11 a.m. Sunday.
A blue plaque is to be unveiled at the last home in Devon of WWII heroine Eileen Mary Nearne. Ms Nearne died last September of a heart attack, at the age of 89. After her death her role and heroism as an agent in occupied France was revealed including her capture and torture at the hands of the Gestapo. The blue plaque, a scheme operated by English Heritage since 1986, will be unveiled on Tuesday at her former home in Torquay.
For the past two years a group of Irish Americans led by Connecticut businessman Carl Shanahan has been working to create a national museum in Washington, D.C., to honor Ireland’s legacy in America. “The history of the United States is the history of Irish America,” says Shanahan. “That history deserves its rightful place in our nation’s capital”.
You can see now digitized versions of very old Sheboygan city and county directories that are part of Mead Public Library's Local History Collection on the Internet. The books include city/county directories from 1875-1898, plus a 1918 rural directory. Listings include residents, businesses, schools, churches and societies.
After 14 years as director of the state Library, Archives and Public Records division, GladysAnn Wells is about to close her own chapter of Arizona history when she retires later this month. Wells is packing up her personal archives in her office beneath the wood-paneled state library, preparing to marry and move to North Carolina - with her two horses, two dogs and donkey along for the journey.
For about 50 years, Bob Baitinger kept a World War I Army helmet in his collection of military memorabilia, curious about the soldier who wore it. "I often wondered if he was still alive or who he was," Baitinger said.
The National Library of Malaysia (NLM) was established in 1966 as a unit within the National Archive. The NLM became a full federal department in 1972 under the National Library Act 1972 (Act 80). It is under the administration of the director-general of the National Archive and National Library.
Apart from being a landmark institution for providing higher education to girls, the St. Bede's College in Shimla holds the distinction of having a treasure trove in form of archives which is a collection of ancient books, journals and photographs stored since 1904, when the institution was established.
Did you know that you can visit the mobile version of GeneaNet at 
The Guinness Archive preserves the 
Belfast City Council allows you to search for 
German trainee undertakers are being put through their paces at Europe's only "funeral school" in Münnerstadt - anything but a dying business in the fast-ageing continent. The training course at this north Bavarian town lasts three years, involving both schooling and on-the-job practical apprenticeships.
More than two decades after the Berlin Wall fell, Germans are still queueing to see the files on them compiled by the Stasi, the hated East German secret police, the head of the archive said Thursday.Since the Wall came down in 1989, there have been 1.8 million requests for access to Stasi documentation, Marianne Birthler told reporters.
The Friends of the National Archives have completed the cataloguing of more than 20,000 soldiers' records held at the Kilmainham Hospital in Dublin from 1783-1822. The files can now be found in 
The National Archives of India will celebrate its 120th Foundation Day Friday with a seminar titled 'Politics, Philosophy and Aesthetics: Revisiting Gandhi, Tagore and Iqbal'. Set up in 1891 in Kolkata as the Imperial Records Department, the National Archives was transferred to the capital in 1911 and moved to its current premises in 1926.
A letter postmarked in 1944 
The Wild West as it really was rather than how Hollywood has imagined it is revealed in this extraordinary collection of pictures.
The question of who, once dead, will lie in honor in the Rotunda of the Capitol is one that rises rarely and usually without the gossamer of political controversy. But the family of the longest surviving American World War I veteran, who died last month at 110, has been rebuffed by the leaders of the House and Senate, who have moved to deny the late soldier his day under the dome.
A 350-year-old notebook describing the execution of innocent women for ‘consorting with the Devil’ has been published online with JISC funding by The University of Manchester’s John Rylands library.
The Archives Department in Kashmir houses some of the vital documents about Kashmir’s history, culture and heritage. But for the Jammu and Kashmir Government, they seem to be worth nothing, not even preservation.
The Missouri State Archives will be posting thousands of old state Supreme Court cases online for the public to view beginning late next year. The Secretary of State’s office says the State Archives has received a grant of more than $148,000 from the federal government for the project.
Archived documents on the "life and times" of former president Nelson Mandela will soon be available on Google, the Nelson Mandela Foundation said. “We want to make this history available to audiences throughout the world free of charge,” Nelson Mandela Foundation CEO Achmat Dangor said at a press briefing with Google in Houghton, Johannesburg.
There had long been rumors that a jar containing the names of World War II veterans from Ruffs Dale, Westmoreland County, was buried in a church yard. The urban legend has turned out to be true, and Channel 4 Action News' Jennifer Miele reported that the find made by a pair of history buffs will be used to restore a memorial in town.
The last surviving great-grandson of Ulysses S. Grant has died in a southwest Missouri home brimming with artifacts from the nation's 18th president and commander of the Union forces in the Civil War.
An envelope thus addressed to a now-mysterious Miss Fletcher arrived at Camp Roberts last month, 67 years after an equally unknown correspondent dispatched it. The postmark reads Montgomery, Ala., Aug. 9, 1944. A small tear in the return-address corner reveals the contents -- a handwritten letter -- but dashes hopes of identifying the sender. The back flap is sealed with tape.
The National Archives has launched the fastest, most accurate version yet of its award-winning file-identification software.
The U.S. Department of Defense on Tuesday said it has sent a specially-trained team to southeast China to search for twelve American soldiers who went missing after their plane crashed in China during the Korean War.
A 25-year-old Romanian woman could be the world's youngest grandmother. Rifca Stanescu gave birth to her first child, Maria, at age 12, a British tabloid, The Sun, reported Monday. She urged her daughter not to follow in her footsteps, but the girl also gave birth to a child before reaching her teen years.
GeneaNet is redesigning and restructuring its website.
Sharing information is second nature to most genealogists and GeneaNet lets you easily upload and share your birth/baptism, marriage and death/burial indexes to help other genealogists in their research.
During the peak months of the year, it's nearly impossible to get your wedding booked at a church or other venue. The economy is in the toilet and the costs for a wedding are already outrageous as it is. Further, you want a nice place to have this special day at.
A rare World Ward II rubber intelligence map of Iwo Jima was returned to the Battleship USS North Carolina this week. The battleship took part in the US Navy and Marine assault on the Japanese-held island during a brutal World War II battle.
There’s a new phenomenon “trending” on social media — and it has absolutely no connection to wacky Hollywood stars or crazy Twitter rants. The City of Vancouver Archives has digitized about 400 panoramic cityscapes from the early 1900s and made them available on the 
On Sunday 2 April, 1911, families across the country completed long and detailed questionnaires about their living conditions, occupations and fertility in marriage – making that year's census the most detailed, some might say intrusive, since records began.
The census set for early March has been cancelled and will not be held this year. Government statistician Geoff Bascand made the announcement today saying a large part of the census operation was run from Christchurch and had been badly damaged in the quake.
Five Australians held prisoner by Japan during World War II have returned to the country they once hated and feared — as guests of the government in an effort by Tokyo to heal the wounds of history.
A signed copy of a speech by King George VI has been found in the Jersey archive. The king's speeches and stammer have become well known recently through the Oscar-winning film, The King's Speech.
What began as a project to digitize a collection of Chicago Tribune newspapers in 2009 has expanded to provide a resource of thousands of digitized pages of books and publications for MSU Libraries.
If you are interested in a sepia-toned photo of the 1932 graduating class of Central High School or an 1836 letter from William Andusentte of New Orleans to Britton Duke of Germantown regarding cotton prices, you can put on your shoes and button up your coat before heading to the fourth floor of the Benjamin L. Hooks Central Library to see them.
One of the last two known veterans of World War I celebrated his 110th birthday Thursday with at least three generations of family and a contingent of navy officers in dress uniform. His daughter said he didn't want a fuss.
When Gainesville physician Dr. Kathy Cantwell died last summer, her friends and family buried her just the way the longtime environmentalist wanted. She was not embalmed and had neither a costly casket nor a tombstone.
Fully searchable digital edition of the