England

Ancestral Atlas a Hidden Mapping Gem

Have you heard of Ancestral Atlas? It is a mapping website. It is free to register and you can upgrade to a subscription for £20.00. When you subscribe you have access to history map layers for England, Wales and Ireland; historical boundary maps for the USA; all new licenced data added to the site; Life Maps functionality and other benefits.

The map is world wide and you add events related to your family history and where they happened. If my Great Great Grandmother was born at 23 York Street in Dublin then I can go to that place on the map and upload the information of her birth. You can decide to keep the information private or share the information. You must register to add your own information.

There is a link for quick help where a box pops up and it has information to help you add a new person, edit an existing person, viewing the location of the people/events in your people list, adding an event when you know the location, and many other options. You have the choice of printing this help page so that it is close at hand when you are entering your information. There is a page of FAQ’s to help you with any questions you may have.

When you look at the map for the place you are interested in you will see little blue balloons and if you click on them then you will get information that someone uploaded regarding a person linked to that place.

You can filter your search by given name, family name, start year and end year.

Visit the website and see what Ancestral Atlas is all about.

©2012 – Blair Archival Research All Rights Reserved

Have You Checked Out firstworldwar.com Yet?

The website firstworldwar.com bills itself as “a multimedia history of World War One.” There is a wealth of information to be found on this site. The page titles under the heading details are: how it began, battlefield tours, battles, an encyclopedia, source documents, special features, a timeline, war in the air, weaponry and a who’s who. Then you have other headings like multimedia, narratives and site information.

Under the multimedia heading you can find images of battlefields today, maps, propaganda posters, vintage audio and video and vintage photographs. The narratives heading provides links to examples of memoirs and diaries and prose and poetry.

You can read a collection of telegrams between Kaiser Wilhelm II and Tsar Nicholas II sent in the four days before the start of the war.

There is a story called “A Slow Fuse: Hitler’s Wartime Experience” which looks at how Hitler’s experiences in the First World War shaped the man he became.

If you are looking for more information on the First World War you may find something of interest on the site. The site is a work in progress and is done in the spare time of the sites creator.

©2012 – Blair Archival Research All Rights Reserved

Irish Emigration Database – Not just for Ireland

The Irish Emigration Database is a collection passenger lists from ships sailing from the United Kingdom and Ireland to the United States. The information was compiled with the assistance of the Balch Institute Philadelphia, the Ellis Island Restoration Commission and the Battery Conservancy, New York.

You can search the database by surname, first name, gender, age, arrival date range which covers the years 1846 to 1886 and port of arrival. The choices for port of arrival are New York, Boston, New Orleans and Philadelphia.

I used the search term of John Murphy 1846 to 1849 and got 246 results.

The results are sorted by first name, surname, age, sex, occupation, country, Dept. Port, ship, manifest, Arr. Port and Arr. Date.

You can print the full list, an individual passenger or view the ships manifest. When you chose a passenger and then view the ships manifest you get another transcribed list of passengers. The John Murphy I chose came from a ship’s manifest of 315 passengers. They are listed alphabetically.

I was not able to find a more detailed description of the database. The database title of Country I believe is country of origin. Some are listed as England, Ireland, USA and Austria.

This is another resource for passenger lists from the United Kingdom and Ireland. The information is transcribed there are no original images.

©2011 – Blair Archival Research All Rights Reserved