This week’s blog will run down several little paths. Enjoy the ride.
DNA Testing
If you, or someone you know, have been waiting to take a DNA test because of the cost, the cost will continue to rise. What you need to do is look for the times the tests go on sale like now until St. Patrick’s Day. Several times a year all of the DNA testing sites will have sales in conjunction with holidays throughout the year.
Ancestry DNA Sale, $40 off https://tinyurl.com/ymu2r8dv
FamilyTreeDNA https://www.dnaweekly.com/reviews/family-tree-dna/coupons/
Do you research colonial North Carolina?
The North Carolina Historical Research Online (NCHRO) recently announced they have completed their multi-year-long project to digitize all 1.2 million images of original land grants (initial land issued by the King, proprietor, or other government agency), and cataloged them. All for free! I have been using this site to help in much of my client research and you can find them also at https://nclandgrants.com/. These cover the years 1663 – 1960.
They will now concentrate on other documents not currently available online, these will be available at https://ncscans.com/. These will include documents at the State Archives of North Carolina (SANC) but also smaller repositories around the state. They have a sample of some documents on their site such as; from Beaufort County Jacob Swindell Busines Ledger, Jail records, and Private Collections. From Orange County; Treasurer & Comptroller County Settlements, etc.
I wish more groups of dedicated researchers would do the same!!
Historic Newspapers
While we have websites dedicated to searching newspaper clippings like Newspapers.com© and GenealogyBank.com©. They typically do not have truly historic newspapers. Here in Georgia, we have the Digital Library of Georgia, which is a GALILEO initiative of the University of Georgia.
When a county courthouse has suffered a tragic loss of records we can sometimes find the information in the local newspaper. It has been a law since the first newspapers were published here in the US that anytime an estate was heading into probate that an announcement must be placed in the local newspaper informing any debtors or creditors to the estate were to contact the person named as administering the estate.