Online access to the Society's Library Catalogue - SOGCAT http://www.sog.org.uk/sogcat/access/ALONG THOSE LINES . . .
"LOCATING LOCAL AND FAMILY HISTORIES ONLINE"
by
George G. MorganI had the pleasure in May of this year of leading a genealogical research tour to England. It was sponsored by the Iowa Genealogical Society and, while we were in London, we had the opportunity to visit and conduct genealogical research in some of the great repositories of the world. Not the least of these was the Society of Genealogists (SoG). The genealogical materials they hold are the largest collection of its type in England, if not in all of Europe. When I was there, I spent a lot of time working with manuscripts and card files, a short time looking into published family histories.
At the time we were there, the prototype of their online catalog, SOGCAT, was accessible in the SoG building. Since that time, it has been made available to the general public at their Web site (
http://www.sog.org.uk). This is an exciting development because it gives access to their holdings.
Since my time with the SoG's local and family histories collection was so limited, I only had the opportunity to research and photocopy a limited number of pages in a few books. Now that I have had a few extra hours to spend with my research, I decided to get into SOGCAT and see what published books are there. I identified several books about my BALL family history and then began to wonder how I could gain access to them. I certainly considered working with my public library to determine what libraries might have copies and then make an Interlibrary Loan (ILL) request for a copy of the index, followed by another ILL request for copies of actual pages from the books that interested me. I also considered the possibility of using online used booksellers to locate copies of the books to purchase, but that could be an expensive proposition.
I decided that, before I did all that work, I would see if there were copies of any of the books I sought were accessible in digitized format online. Once again, the
Ancestry.com - Genealogy and Family History Records site came through for me. In "Along Those Lines . . ." this week, let me explain the process I used, and perhaps it will inspire you to do similar research.
IDENTIFYING THE BOOKS
I visited the SoG Web site and went into the SOGCAT. I wanted to look for my BALL ancestors and family. I figured the surname might be in the titles of a number of books but thought that a subject search might yield more items. I therefore selected "Look For SU" (Subject) and entered ball family. At the top of the search results list was "Ball (surname)" and a notation and option to "Search Also Under: Balls (surname)." I clicked on the link to "Ball (surname) and was rewarded with nineteen titles. Some are books, others are typescripts (including newsletters), and there are references to periodical reprints.
In SOGCAT\'s search results, to the left of each entry is a little box. Click the box next to each one you are interested in and then, at the top or bottom of the page, click on the View button. You can the see each item you checked, record by record, examine more details about the item, and then either print or e-mail the entire list to yourself.
I e-mailed my list of three books to myself and the list appeared in my mailbox almost immediately. Wow! I opened the e-mail, printed it, and then began my search for the following three books.
1. Ball Family Records: Genealogical Memoirs of some Ball Families of Great Britain, Ireland & America
Author Wright, William Ball
2. Colonel William Ball Of Virginia, The Great-Grandfather Of Washington
Author Heck, Earl L. W.
3. Virginia Genealogies; A Genealogy of the Glassell family of Scotland & Virginia, also of the families of Ball, Brown, Bryan, Conway, Daniel, Ewell, Holladay, Lewis, Littlepage, Moncure, Peyton, Robinson, Scott, Taylor, Wallace & others, of Virginia & Maryland
I decided that, before I did all that work, I would see if there were copies of any of the books I sought were accessible in digitized format online. Once again, the
Ancestry.com site came through for me. In "Along Those Lines . . ." this week, let me explain the process I used, and perhaps it will inspire you to do similar research.
FAMILY AND LOCAL HISTORIES AT
Ancestry.com - Search Family & Local Historiesis one of the premium subscription databases. Within this collection, I have found digitized books that are not available in my local public library\'s rather sizeable genealogical collection. Once you identify a book in the collection, you can click on the link to display a search template and a full table of contents. The search template allows you to search within that book (title) only or among all the Family and Local Histories collection.
Of the three titles I had identified in SOGCAT, I found William Ball Wright\'s book (#1) and Horace Edwin Hayden\'s book (#3). While I did not find book #2, I did find several other BALL genealogies, including two whose contents added to my knowledge of some of my direct ancestors.
1. Edward Ball and Some of His Descendants, by Nicholas Ball
2. The Ball family of Southwest Virginia: a genealogy of some of the descendants of Moses Ball of Fairfax County, by Palmer Ray Ball
Ancestry.com\'s images allow me to zoom in and out of the document, change the resolution for faster loading, scroll from page to page, and print, save, and/or e-mail the material.
Since I had not found the second book in
Ancestry.com\'s collection, I returned to the search template and entered the first name of William, the surname of Ball, and a keyword of Colonel, hoping to narrow the search a bit. The search results were even more encouraging than I had hoped! The two books I\'d already found were included, but there were ninety-six other search results.
Author Hayden, Horace Edwin
Ancestry.com - Search Family & Local HistoriesThe Family and Local Histories collection is one of the premium subscription databases. Within this collection, I have found digitized books that are not available in my local public library's rather sizeable genealogical collection. Once you identify a book in the collection, you can click on the link to display a search template and a full table of contents. The search template allows you to search within that book (title) only or among all the Family and Local Histories collection.
Of the three titles I had identified in SOGCAT, I found William Ball Wright's book (#1) and Horace Edwin Hayden's book (#3). While I did not find book #2, I did find several other BALL genealogies, including two whose contents added to my knowledge of some of my direct ancestors.
1. Edward Ball and Some of His Descendants, by Nicholas Ball
2. The Ball family of Southwest Virginia: a genealogy of some of the descendants of Moses Ball of Fairfax County, by Palmer Ray Ball
Ancestry.com's images allow me to zoom in and out of the document, change the resolution for faster loading, scroll from page to page, and print, save, and/or e-mail the material.
Since I had not found the second book in the collection, I returned to the search template and entered the first name of William, the surname of Ball, and a keyword of Colonel, hoping to narrow the search a bit. The search results were even more encouraging than I had hoped! The two books I'd already found were included, but there were ninety-six other search results.
The first one in the list is a 1941 book titled "A Few Early Families of America," by Johnson Albert. When I clicked on the link, I was taken to page 136 where William Ball (Colonel) is listed as the father of one Joseph Ball. A drop-down box at the top of the screen labeled "Go to section:" allows me to move around the rest of the sections of this book, including the table of contents and the index.
In the index I could look at all the Ball family members included in the book. Based on the page number listed for William Ball, I returned to the top of the screen and entered page number 135 as cited in the index. That page was displayed and, sure enough, there was Col. William Ball. (My exact search using the keyword of \'Colonel\' had excluded this page because his military rank was abbreviated. This taught me another lesson about entering too narrow a search.)
MAKING THE CONNECTION WITH THE BOOKS
I am a huge fan of Interlibrary Loan and I use it a lot to extend my research into materials in the non-circulating collections of distant libraries and archives. However, I never forget that there are digitized local and family histories online, searchable, printable, and with other options. As I showed you in this scenario, I was easily able to locate and access two of the three books at the SoG that had been digitized, and this saves me another trip to England as well as using ILL. I also found several other books I had not known were part of the
Ancestry.com Family and Local Histories collection. Boy, do I have more fodder for my research now!
Happy Hunting!
George
______________________________
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Visit George's Web site at
http://ahaseminars.com/atl for information about speaking engagements. Upcoming appearances:
--- 19 October 2005
Marion County Genealogical Society (Ocala, Florida)
--- 29 October 2005
Charlotte County Genealogical Society (Port Charlotte, Florida)
--- 10 November 2005
Halifax Genealogical Society (Ormond Beach, Florida)
--- 11-12 November 2005
Vero Beach Book Festival (Vero Beach, Florida)
Copyright 2005, MyFamily.com. All rights reserved.
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Your Daily Dose of Genealogy for 14 October 2005
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Ancestry Daily News" online
