* National Archives (USA) archival databases news

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jmurphy
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National Archives (USA) archival databases news

Post by jmurphy » 06 Mar 2008 19:31

Just wanted to mention for those of us doing research in the US, or for those of you who like to compare what records are available in the US and UK -- the US National Archives does have some information online, on their Access to Archival Databases (AAD) website.

The link is http://aad.archives.gov/aad/

Most recently they have posted some sets of data extracted from transcriptions of passenger lists by Temple University's The Center for Immigration Research (CIR) at the Balch Institute.

The record set of most interest to FHUG members may be this one:
Records for Passengers Who Arrived at the Port of New York During the Irish Famine, created, 1977 - 1989, documenting the period 1/12/1846 - 12/31/1851
There are no images, but once you have the data, some images are available elsewhere (microfilm at NARA, or via Ancestry, etc.). Even though some of this data may be available elsewhere, my experience with Ancestry and other commercial vendors is, it is better to have multiple indexes and transcriptions to search, because you might find someone in one index that you couldn't in another due to mis-transcription and so on.

Also, especially since this data was colleccted as part of a research project, NARA provides MUCH better information about the dataset, who made the transcription, for what purpose, the dates covered, etc. than Ancestry does.

Jan

ID:2786

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