Summer is a great time to travel to the old home places and distant repositories. What's your first step?  Create Your Plan The longer your trip and farther away your destination, the more preparation you will need. Are passport, visa, special vaccinations required? Early on, write away for maps; some are available for free but arrive by mail; good local maps will help in the planning process. How about connections with researchers in the localities you will visit? Join some local societies, and start conversations with the local history groups, libraries, colleges, courthouses, archives and museums. Create a spreadsheet or table to gather names, contact information, closed dates, hours of operation. Before you leave, print your itinerary and the info sheet. Leave a copy at home with friends and family, too.  Prepare short biographies of ancestors who lived locally to leave in vertical files in libraries and archives. Ensure that each bio has your contact information; if...

  I have found a new "favorite" place for researching--the Digital Public Library of America  Digital Public Library of America (dp.la) .  It isn't a new place, its charter was established in 2012, but it is new to me and I am enjoying the different ways to explore the information available. "The Digital Public Library of America amplifies the value of libraries and cultural organizations as Americans’ most trusted sources of shared knowledge. We do this by collaborating with partners to accelerate innovative tools and ideas that empower and equip libraries to make information more accessible. "We work with a national network of partners to: Make millions of materials from libraries, archives, museums, and other cultural institutions across the country available to all in a one-stop discovery experience. Provide a library-controlled marketplace and platform for libraries to purchase, organize, and deliver ebooks and other e-content to their patrons. Convene libr...

When planning research in a new place, many of us have consulted the FamilySearch Research Wiki, and have collected books which cover states or regions where we find our ancestors and their friends, associates and neighbors.  On this blog   we've discussed creating a checklist  to ensure that we don't overlook useful resources to answer our research questions. Reusable locality research guide is a map to success Recently, advice to create our own locality research guides seem to be popping up everywhere, which takes the checklist concept to a whole new level. The recent   National Genealogical Society Magazine , had "Creating and Using Locality Guides as Genealogy Tools" by Jan Joyce. The article itself is available to NGS Members or from the magazine itself, but fortunately her case study and examples are available  here  for everyone. Holmes County, Indiana is shown but the principles are the same for every locality.  Challenge Accepted! Countie...