Introductory information includes County, City, and Page. 

1. Names of heads of families: This is the only written information on the record, it lists the head of the family and the rest of the fields are counts in each of the categories.

2. Free white males of 16 years and upwards, including heads of families.

3. Free white males under 16 years.

4. Free white females including heads of families.

5. All other free persons.

6. Slaves.

Introductory information includes State, County, City, and Page.

1. Names of heads of families: This is the only written information on the record. It lists the head of the family. This field also lists free black heads of households. The rest of the fields are totals in each category.

2. Free white males under 10

3. Free white males 10 thru 15

4. Free white males 16 thru 25

5. Free white males 26 thru 44

6. Free white males 45 and over

7. Free white females under 10

8. Free white females 10 thru 15

9. Free white females 16 thru 25

10. Free white females 26 thru 44

11. Free white females 45 and over

12. All other free persons, except Indians, not taxed

13. Slaves

If you are having trouble locating a person or event that you just KNOW happened around a certain time period, take a step back and look around. There might be a newspaper in a neighboring town or even a different state that can shed light on your topic. Recently, I was looking very hard for something that happened in Davenport, Iowa...I found it in the Rock Island, Illinois.

Get yourself a new map indeed.

Image courtesy of mack2happy / FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Getting started in family history or genealogy research isn't terribly difficult, it just requires a little bit of information. It's often best to interview relatives that you know about ancestors that they can remember. Start by making a list of your grandparents and their pertinent information, including birth, death, and marriage dates, etc. Hopefully you can find out the names of their parents too and you'll have a great start.

After you have a base of info, find a family tree software package or site of your choice and enter that information. I like to use family tree maker and ancestry.com, but there are a multitude of other great options out there. The advantage of using software like family tree maker, is that it is linked to ancestry.com and will help you make discoveries automatically.

I was at a workshop last week about preserving 20th Century visual materials and was shaken by a little nugget that was mentioned. VHS tapes may have as little as a 15 year lifespan if not stored in good conditions. Yikes! Now, that's not to say that all tapes are going to be junk and there's nothing we can do about it, but it is a wake up call to start thinking about migrating them to a new medium. I still have a vcr, so I haven't worried about the vhs tapes at all...I can still play them so, what do I have to worry about? Well, it may be that I can't play them...I haven't tried to play them in some time and I really don't know where they all are. Also, have I been keeping my vcr clean? Do I have a vcr head cleaner? All of these questions are relevant and can effect how our tapes play, if they play at all. So, I'm not going to panic, but I will be taking immediate action to move things I have on video soon. It looks like there are some ways to digitize video without spending an arm and a leg. Stay tuned and as I start to work on this process, I'll update here.

Thinking and about work on this Wednesday. This is Willard N. Brink II, my grandfather, posing with his Brink's Hatchery truck. I remember him as a retired Postman, but before he carried the mail, he was raising chickens. His wife, my grandmother Leona, was a librarian in her later years. I also have a great grandfather on my Mom's side of the family who raised chickens for awhile. I may have missed my calling.

My Gr-Grandmother with her siblings and her parents in front of their sod home near Mason City, Nebraska. 1880's. This was the initial dwelling on what would become a successful ranch. Happy Earth Day!