For those concerned about having the latest information, try Genealogy Bank. Their version of the SSDI (as of today) contained a reference for my grandmother who died in Bradenton, Manatee County, Florida on 9 September of 2008. It might have been in their earlier, but I haven't been checking it on a regular basis for updates. But that's still pretty fast.

Labels: genealogybank

I really like Genealogy Bank and encourage those who do not have it to at least give it a try for a month. However, after having used it extensively tonight, I have the following suggestions:

• Soundex searches
• have the option to filter out "just one state"
• allow us to track what results we have already seen
• the ability to view more than five results at a time

Don't get me wrong, I've made some really neat discoveries on Genealogy Bank some of which I have already blogged about. Items have been located that I would never have found any other way, several of which suggest additional records. Consider trying Genealogy Bank for a month and see what you think. One month costs certainly costs less than a tank of gas!

Labels: genealogybank

Labels: genealogybank, troutfetter

This reference was found on Genealogy Bank. I've found several other references to Philip Troutfetter there, but this one was a new one for me. Goes to show you that even the classified ads in a newspaper may yield clues. And it goes to show that OCR searches (such as the ones are at Genealogy Bank) can help a genealogist find things they never thought they would. Now I even have an address for him in 1897.

Date: 1897-05-23; Paper: The Colorado Springs Gazette

Labels: genealogybank, troutfetter

Labels: genealogybank

I've been using the Historical Newspapers at GenealogyBank in an attempt to learn more about Philip Troutfetter, who was involved in some interesting financial activity in Colorado around the turn of the twentieth century. I love to do soundex and wildcard searches when possible, but GenealogyBank does not allow Soundex searches (however wildcard searches are possible at GenealogyBank).

I find it best to make a list of variant spellings of the name before beginning any search.

Here's a few:

Trautvetter
Trautfetter
Troutfetter
Troutvetter
Trantvetter
Trantfetter
Troutfelter
Trautvelter

There are MORE.

It is important to remember that when printed materials are digitized, letters can easily be misread. For that reason, Trautvelter is a reasonable variant as is Trantvetter. Small "e" can also be misread as a "c." Searching records that have been digitized and indexed with OCR requires thinking about how letters can be misinterpreted if part of the image is difficult to read.

Labels: genealogybank, ocr, tips

Genealogy Bank has a great deal of information for the genealogist and the price is fairly reasonable when one considers the quantity of data.

Social Security Death Index (available also on Rootsweb for free)
Modern Obituaries
Historical Newspapers
Historical Books
Historical Documents

You can go to their home page and do a basic search and get a sneak peek at the results, which is how I got hooked and how I initially learned about the world travels of my law-enforcement evading relative.

They just added a number of newspapers, including various issues from:

San Francisco Bulletin
Miami Herald Record
Columbus Daily Enquirer
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer
Macon Telegraph
Idaho Statesman
Belleville News Democrat
Inter Ocean
Lexington Herald
Baltimore Sun
Duluth News-Tribune
Kansas City Star
Daily Herald
Grand Forks Herald
Omaha World Herald
Wilkes-Barre Times
Aberdeen American
Aberdeen Daily News
Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Bellingham Herald
Morning Olympian
Olympia Record

Maybe they'll continue the Kansas City Star and I can look for the July 1921 murder of my great-grandmother's brother.

Labels: genealogybank

Sometimes genealogists forget that libraries may subscribe to online services that could be helpful to them in their own research.

While leading a recent trip to the Allen County Public Library, I had some time to experiment with Genealogybank.com--which the library provides to onsite patrons in their facility. The historical books, newspapers, and documents indexed here are a treasure trove of information. Genealogybank.com is also a subscription that individuals can obtain privately for use in their own home, with a variety of subscription plans. Its concentration is on materials that were originally created in print format and nicely augments other subscription databases that focus on federal records.

I located a early twentieth century article on a cousin detailing his 20,000 mile trek around North America, eluding police officials until his capture in Boston in the early 1900s. Locating this article would have been impossible with out the OCR search capabilities offered on Genealogybank.com. This relative will be mentioned in future blog posts and articles as I learn more about his escape from police officers and his involvement in Cuban stamp fraud (among other things).

Labels: genealogybank