Cemeteries and Serendipity

This past Halloween, our Genealogy Tea and Sympathy program covered Cemeteries and Serendipity. As part of this virtual session, we talked about various aspects of cemetery research: Cemetery name changes over time, available records, affordable marking, genealogy stories, helpful books, and online databases. As a companion piece to the Tea, …

Veteran Service Records at the National Archives

By: Bill Burchfield, MSLS, Kentucky Historical Society Librarian At a recent Tea & Sympathy, we discussed military records in genealogy research.  This video expands this discussion.  In it we will examine various types of military records available from the National Archives and Records Administration and the National Personnel Records Center.  …

The National Library of Medicine’s Digital Collections for the Genealogist

By: Bill Burchfield, MSLS, Kentucky Historical Society Librarian We all know that the early history of the United States is filled with disease epidemics. Kentucky has shared in their sometimes-disastrous outcomes. Cholera was an especially dreadful disease that cropped up from time to time in various locations throughout the Commonwealth …

Gideon Shryock and the 1833 Cholera Epidemic

By: Cheri Daniels, MSLS, Head of Reference Services, Editor of Kentucky Ancestors Online As the summer of 1833 heated up, the people of Kentucky became swiftly aware of the dangers spreading in their direction. A cholera epidemic, the first of several they would endure over the next few decades, was …

Book Notes – Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landscape

Evolution of a Kentucky Landscape. Richard Taylor. (2018. Pp. 298. $35.00. Hardback. University Press of Kentucky: https://www.kentuckypress.com/9780813176017/elkhorn/) ISBN: 978-0-8131-7601-7. “Richard Taylor is professor of English and Kenan Visiting Writer at Transylvania University and former Poet Laureate of Kentucky. Taylor has written numerous books, including Sue Mundy: A Novel of the Civil War, …

Document! Document! Document!

By: Jama Watts, MLIS, Reference & Genealogy Librarian, Marion County Public Library They say that in real estate, the key is “location, location, location.”  In genealogy, the key is “document, document, document!”  Even if you’re not planning on publishing a book about your family history or applying to a society like the …

Elmer Beville’s War (Part 2)

By: David Baker Editor’s Note: This article, along with Part 1 published earlier in November 2018, showcase two different approaches to incorporating primary sources into family history writing. Part 1 provided examples of how one can fact check a letter or diary to better understand what the original writer was describing. …