I have been lucky with finding information on GenealogyBank.com and Newspapers.com. You can find obituaries as well as archived newspaper articles. Many years ago newspapers published a lot of personal-type "stuff" that can give great clues as to what was going on in someone's life.

Also, don't forget to look at state census records. Not all states took their own census (done between the federal census years), but state census records have been a great help to me for some ancestors.

For finding out a cause of death, in addition to the obituaries and newspaper articles, you can check the (Federal Census) Mortality Schedules.

I know exactly what you mean by getting into an altered state zone. Genealogy research is definitely addicting!

Thanks, Lindsey! I think I can get Newspapers.com for free at the library too. I'll report back!

I don't know anything about ships lists.

You could send an email to the library in the area where the person died and request an obituary lookup. That may tell you the cause of death. You can also pay and request a death certificate, but there are often restrictions on who can request a death certificate. You may not qualify. I'm not sure about NYC, but other states often don't have good death records from those years.

For census records, some people just didn't get recorded some years. It's frustrating. Did these people have children or brothers or sister? You may be able to track them through other relatives. Someone else with an Ancestry tree may have more info. If the man was still alive in 1940, you may have some luck... at least for the previous five years. The 1940 census also recorded where people were in 1935.

Here is a place that has free access to old newspapers. http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/

I've found old newspapers for some states and then it's totally lacking in other areas. I did find some things that I didn't find on newspapers.com. The search engine isn't real user friendly, but it works.

Another way to find immigration records: http://libertyellisfoundation.org/about-passenger-search

I don't know if the ships' manifests include maiden names or not, it's been several years since I looked at any of them. You should be able to find the ships they came on. Maybe even pictures of the ship.

I know what you mean by "altered state"! ! I'm not a skilled genealogist, either, but I sure can get 'lost' in it!

Good luck!

Rusty

Genealogy requires quite a bit of imagination and lots of guesses but usually when you actually find what you are looking for it makes sense. When I was working on it in the 1980's there was nowhere near the information available currently. I found that old newspapers were a great source of information. I read many, many of them on microfilm. I was searching for information from small, rural towns so they were a godsend to me. Obituaries gave relationships and news items gave me a feel for the actual lives of those relatives. I found state historical societies had microfilmed newspapers from even the very small towns. Most counties, too, have Historical societies which have tons of local information. Don't forget courthouses.

I don't know where you live, but I found a wonderful genealogy library in Fort Wayne, Indiana. They even had old city directories from St. Paul and Minneapolis, Minnesota which were the areas I was working on.

Rusty, that would only be a good resource if the ancestors came through Ellis Island. All of my ancestors who immigrated to the US (obviously, my Cherokee & Blackfoot & Sioux ancestors are excepted!) came here LONG before Ellis Island was even a thing.

LOL, very true Imstillchloecat, but I was replying to Allisande's quest for info about 1891 immigrants. Now I realize that the records at Ellis Island start in 1892. My dad came here is the early 1900's, so I was able to get useful info from that site. Also found my maternal grandfather there.

Oh, well, maybe someone will find something they can use there.

Rusty

Yes to City Directories. Phone directories too -- if you're looking in a timeframe when most people had telephones; they'd have addresses as well. Are there voter registration records -- maybe by township?

Maiden names will only be found on ship manifests if the woman was still known by that name. For example, Italian women are always and forever known by their maiden name even if they are married. If you're born Carmela Pagionetti, you will be known as Carmela Pagionetti your entire life. Your children will be given and known by the surname of their father. For many of the years (but not all), manifests would have a column for the name and address of the closest relative "in the country from whence you came," and also the name and address of the person who is their destination in the USA. So, Carmela Pagionetti might be shown with a destination of "Husband Giovanni Lucarini."

German women do take their husband's surname, but documents nearly always will reflect a German woman's maiden name. An example would be Gisela Schumacher, geb. Braun which tells you that Gisela Schumacher's maiden name is Braun. Even better for genealogy, if Gisela was married to someone with the surname Krause before she married Schumacher, but Krause died, her name will be shown as Gisela Schumacher, Witwe Krause, geb. Braun. "Witwe" is "widow" and "geb." is short for "geboren" which is "born." But, ship manifests do not seem to worry about including the maiden name for women, which is a shame.

My friend, who has been doing genealogy for over 20 years (before computers) says her favorite site is FamilySearch.org. It's sponsored by LDS church, is free and very easy to manipulate the site. It will walk you through everything. She does not like Ancestry.com because she thinks it's expensive.

I found a lot of information at the familysearch.org site. Ancestry is expensive, but it has lots of pictures and stories. What has been nice for me is to be able to contact other people and share with them. Just last week I found out one of my relatives had a business partner in his moonshine business. Lol! You don't find that kind of information just anywhere. The same person who told me about the moonshine also showed her sister a picture I had. They identified the unknown person as a relative of theirs. I never would have figured that out. That picture is ninety years old. I have some newspaper articles and other 'lore' they didn't have so it was great.

Edited to fix link.

I know about my moonshiners through word of mouth and newspaper articles. Some will also arrest records. I haven't gone looking for those yet.

adellabedella_usa I found a lot of information at the familkysearch.org site.

You might want to edit that link to read: familysearch.org.

Thank you all for the many responses! I
was out all yesterday, but didn’t make it to the library. I thought I'd get there today, but the weather is keeping me home.

Adellabedella, they had children,
and I was able to track the two sons. But the other five were all girls. Thanks
so much for the Chronicling America link. I used that a lot years ago, but had
lost the bookmark in a computer change. I love that site, even if I’m not
looking for anything specific. Those newspapers have numerous references to my
grandparents, opera singers who performed all over the country.

Rusty, it’s true that the Ellis
Island site starts a year later than what I was looking for, but it’s a great
site and I’m glad to know about it—thanks!

I discovered FamilySearch
recently, which is where I found the Census reports. I remember years ago not
many of these were available.

Lindsey, I'm always interested in the knowledge you share. I had no clue about Italian and German names.

Seniorgal, our local Historical Society has a nice genealogy section, but all my family came from NYC. I'm sure the city has excellent resources, but it's a little vast. (That must be an oxymoron.) lol I haven't lived there in years.

As some of you know, I’m a
volunteer gravestone photographer for FindAGrave. Yesterday I happened upon FAG
memorial pages for two of my children’s ancestors, and asked that management of
the pages be transferred to me. I was happy to send the links to my kids and
granddaughter. It’s funny that my 26-year-old granddaughter has a strong
interest in family history that I thought she wouldn’t develop until much later.

Thanks again!

I just came upon another newspaper site that I used to use. I'd forgotten about it (imagine that!)

http://fultonhistory.com/Fulton.html

You know parents and children's names including daughters. Make a tree on Ancestry and put all of the people and known dates on it. You have one or two census records so add them to the tree too. Usually, at some point, Ancestry will start giving you hints. Usually, other trees are included in the hints. I like to pull up other people's trees and see what they have. You can't trust everything you see because some people have significant errors in their trees and other people copy them without doing any research.

Make sure and click on each child including the daughters and fill in what you can. You may get some hints for marriage records for them. From there, you may get married names or FindAGrave records. The FindAGrave records may be incorrect too. Sometimes they link you up to enough other family members that you can figure it out.

There used to be a Genealogy forum here on Gardenweb. I can no longer find it. Does it not exist anymore? I am slowly getting back into doing some research.

Thanks, Adella. My understanding is that I can make a tree on Ancestry only as a paid member, not via the library computer. Even if that's incorrect, I have to limit the time I spend there because I don't do well under fluorescent lights. They trigger ocular migraines for me. But it's interesting how Ancestry works. I hope to become more familiar with it.

WC, I know there was some discussion about forming a Genealogy Forum here, but I don't know how that worked out. I don't see one either.

Alisande, I am positive there used to be a Genealogy forum on this site. I was very surprised when I looked for it and could no longer find it. We have so many people on the forums who do geneaology, you would think Houzz would add it.

No. No genealogy site at GW. You can have a free tree at ancestry. Mine is approaching 6,000 people. NOT my original plan! But for DNA matching I really need everyone. For immigrants before 1892 http://www.castlegarden.org/searcher.php I found some but not all. Worth a look. And yes, the best thing you can do (and I don't promote ancestry. I have issues with the company) is to put a tree on there and work from what you get. Often there is enough information in your hints that you can go elsewhere and find that document. And don't forget Google. You'd be amazed what google knows.

There are a lot of misconceptions about what is, or isn't, or won't be available to folks on Ancestry. Some of what you can/can't do depends on whether or not you've ever had a paid account, but other stuff doesn't.

This page will let you know what Ancestry has to say about it.