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Genealogy Resources on the Internet--Almost All Free!

  
 
(Introduction, with links to other sites with tips!)

Start by interviewing your living ancestors (the Oral History Form might help with the interviewing. If your living ancestors (parents, grandparents, great grandparents) are not 100% sure of where or when they were born, it is possible that this information is given in their marriage application--all you need to know is when and where they were married, then order the license, then the application![1] From there, you may be able to check their birth certificates for their parents' birth places and ages. (Please note that births were not recorded in all states -- Georgia is one such state -- in the early nineteenth century, and so you may have trouble getting birth certificates from some states for births before the Civil War or even before 1900.)

A great place to look next is on one of the censuses, such as the 1880 census[2] -- that census (and subsequent available censuses) lists each person's approximate age, relation to the household head, place of birth, and place of parents' births! The 1890 census is available but in fragmented form (most of it was burnt), so very few listings from it have survived. Censuses from 1900 on provide a birth date (month, day, year) but this information may not always be completely accurate (the singing of "Happy Birthday did not start till 1910!; see Shirley Cherkasky, May, 2000; rpt. online at http://www.chowdc.org/Papers/Cherkasky2000.html). The 1920 and 1930 censuses also provide information about both occupation and industry!

Other resources for the twentieth century include World War I and World War II draft registration cards as well as Social Security death indexes (for people who died after the social security system was started). The draft registration cards completed during World Wars I and II by men of many age groups, provide the registrant's current address and occupation, as well as the birth date (month, day, year) and place. They are easy enough to locate if your ancestor lived in a small town, but you may find yourself going through multiple records under the same name if he or she lived in a larger city.

From here you can try to locate your ancestors in earlier censuses, for example in the 1870, 1860, or 1850 censuses (the last two also had slave schedules [3]). You may also wish to try to locate household or plantation Wills mentioning possible ancestors.

Links on How-To Research

Tips for Getting Started
(Introduction, with links to other sites with tips!)
U.S. Gen Web's Archives
(Databases and Search Engines, also Maps, Tips; formerly Roots Web)
Ancestry.com Online
(The Census, Passenger Lists, and Various Other Databases; the World Tree!)
Family Search
(Various Records and Search Engines, also Maps, Tips
National Records Archive (NARA)
(The Research Room, The Freedmen's Bureau Records, Native American Enrollment Lists, and Military Records)
State Records Archives
(State records available in Pennsylvania and Georgia)
County Formation Maps
(Maps Showing Counties Censused by U.S., and dates of County Formation, County Boundaries)
More About Places and Their People
(Search link--for information on the people of a particular place!)
Other Online Resources
(List of Slaves--primarily from Wills, Surname Tracking, Louisiana Slave Records, a link to Alex Haley's Family Tree, and . . . what about DNA?)
Sites With Collections of Links to Other Resources
(Collections of Links on Genealogy; some include ways families have told their stories)
Off-line Resources
(Books--history, genealogies, how-to)

U.S. Gen Web's Archives
(Databases and Search Engines, with maps; formerly part of Roots Web; some files are from Roots Web thus)

  • http://usgenweb.org: USGenWeb.To peruse these archives, go to the index (at http://www.usgwarchives.net/index.htm), then select a state of interest in the index, then look through the folders of documents offered. Wills are great to find, though not many are posted! Among the information you may find in wills include the names of children and grandchildren, family friends, and the first names of slaves, who may be "willed" to one or another descendant of the person writing the will; names of people to be freed are sometimes also listed!
    Occasionally a legal document "manumitting" a slave may be included in the U.S. gen web archives! (This is the case for Burke County, Georgia.)
    Another good place to look is a county's marriage records (in the vital records folder in the individual counties) -- at http://usgwarchives.net/marriages/. In Southern states, marriages of persons considered Black are generally not listed before 1860 -- although you may find some Freedmen's marriages listed in the early 1800s. Some Civil War and post-Civil War marriages were recorded by the Freedmen's Bureau (see below).
    http://searches.rootsweb.com/htdig/search.html is a search link to the U.S. Genweb Archives.

  • http://www.usgwarchives.net/search/search.cgi/search.htm?form=extended: Search. At this U.S. Genweb link, you can search the whole U.S. Genweb's archives by state, and you can select specific records to search for, such as census records. Use the key to select multiple states or multiple record types. (You can search under both a first and last name under all states; however, sometimes leaving off the state will bring up pages of unrelated data!).

  • http://usgwarchives.net/gsearch/googlesearch.html: USGenWeb Archives Advanced Search Page. This search engine allows you to enter multiple names that should occur in a record; you can enter state and county names the same way -- if you enter "Virginia" both records mentioning the state of Virginia and records mentioning persons named Virginia come up.

  • Individual state and county records at the U.S. Genweb can also be searched from each state's search page. Go to http://usgwarchives.net/search/searcharchives.html, the USGenWeb Archives Search Engines page, and select the state to search. Here you can select individual counties to search. (Alternately a state's search engine may be accessed through its index -- for example, for Louisiana, go to http://usgwarchives.net/la/lafiles.htm: Louisiana Table of Contents Page; clicking on [Louisiana Search Engine] will bring you to http://www.usgwarchives.net/search/search.cgi/searchla.htm a page entitled Search the Louisiana USGenWeb Archives Project, the same search page you access through the USGenWeb Archives Search Engines page).

  • http://usgwarchives.net/census/
    Search the U.S. census! Though the U.S. census started in 1790, only heads of households were given then. And the census only started in these years in the original thirteen colonies, with Georgia's census being pretty sketchy as Georgia had much land to acquire yet in treaties with Indians. Other household members were simply enumerated as slave or free, White, Colored, or Black, male or female, within a particular age category.
    By 1850, names of heads of households were listed with all free household members. Unfree household members were still enumerated without names.
    By 1870 everyone's name was listed along with an occupation (for children who were not working, that might be "in school" or "at home") and by 1880 the census also listed the relationship between every person on a census to the head of the household that person was listed under. Unfortunately though, the best list of censuses is not free, but for pay, at http://search.ancestry.com/search/ (ancestry.com) -- however these are available free in some libraries, for example in the Fort Worth library! (Go to the Fort Worth Library Home page; click on "Online Databases," click on "History and Genealogy," and then click on "Ancestry Library Edition." Alternately, go directly to "History and Genealogy" using this link and click on "Ancestry Library Edition"! (Unfortunately, some ancestry images for some years may have the part showing the page listing slaves cut off--whether that is ancestry's decision or the U.S. census suppliers' I cannot say; complete slave schedules are available for the year 1850, and that is probably where to start once you determine what last names you are looking for and what counties you are looking in-- by taking a family history and searching through ancestors in the 1880 census and also in lists of marriages for the various states--which were recorded generally before births were registered.)
    Another great place to find census records is Family Search (see below).
    To search through the census, you need to know the county an ancestor lived in (see map links below). Some years may not be available in some states, as the gen web is looking still for volunteers to transcribe these!
    Go to: http://www.usgwcensus.org, if you want to transcribe! If you do not have access to a copy or image of a census to transcribe (the ones at ancestry.com -- http://www.ancestry.com, if you have or if your library has access to this database -- are fine for transcribing). Other sources of census images are listed at the U. S. Gen Web's link, http://www.usgwcensus.org/locate/5b.htm. You can also become a second reader of someone else's transcription!

  • http://usgwarchives.net/maps/ Here you can research Indian land cessions by treaty -- click on Indian Land Cessions to the United States Treaty Maps; and look up the treaty # of a region to see what land was ceded when--there will be scant U.S. records for a region before it was ceded to the U.S--though settlers were living there of course--that's why the Indians ceded the land; people wanted it.
    Also, check out the State and County Maps link here to see what counties are near a county -- as some counties were subdivided later so earlier records and later records for the same place may be in different counties; also since some county records have been burned or lost it helps to do an exhaustive search of nearby counties for any that might pop up in them.

  • African American
  • Maps and Land
    • http://www.rootsweb.com/~rwguide/lesson29.htm Roots Web's guide to using information from land resources to locate ancestors. In the early days, not only Southern planters but many whites are listed in these records as well as some minorities; today, less than half the population owns land but the resources still can be valuable. These records can locate a plantation, industry where someone worked, or neighborhood landmark perhaps, as well as land mentioned in Wills and other documents.

    • http://www.rootsweb.com/~usgenweb/maps/ Here you can research Indian land cessions by treaty--click on Indian Land Cessions to the United States Treaty Maps; and look up the treaty # of a region to see what land was ceded when--there will be scant U.S. records for a region before it was ceded to the U.S--though settlers were living there of course--that's why the Indians ceded the land; people wanted it.
      Also, check out the State and County Maps link here to see what counties are near a county--as some counties were subdivided later so earlier records or later records for the same place are in different counties; also since some county records have been burned or lost it helps to do an exhaustive search of nearby counties for any that might pop up in them.

    • Ancestry.com Online
    (The Census, Passenger Lists, and Various Other Databases; the World Tree)

    • http://www.ancestrylibrary.com/default.aspx (free access if you are not a subscriber, must be through a subscribing library). Besides the U.S. censuses (1790 to 1940) and the U.K. censuses (which starts in 1841; records available through 1901), The Ancestry database is a collection of data bases, including in these:
      some U.S. vital records (birth, marriage, death), also some U.S. immigration records, Freedmen Bureau Records of Field Offices 1865-1872, U.S. colored troops Civil War records, U.S. land and title abstracts, U.S. church records, U.S. cemetary transcriptions, Early European vital records, European parish and probate and related records for Scotland, England & Wales, plus a few for Ireland, Irish cemetary transcriptions, French and German church records, miscellaneous French records in the Drouin Collection, and some Canadian records.
      Going Back with http://www.ancestrylibrary.com/default.aspx
      • Military Records: a large number of adult men of many ages were registered for the draft in both World War I and World War II!
        The World War I draft registrations provide: the person's full name, place of residence with the address, date of birth, place of birth, occupation, name of employer (if applicable), city and state where employed, name of any dependents, marital status, race, and information about previous military service. Images of these documents in the original handwriting can be viewed online. These records are really helpful in getting you the right person--According to an article at ancestry.com all "men born between 1873 and 1900" registered in the three registration periods for World War I: on 5 June 1917, men between the ages of 21-31 were registered; on 5 June 1918, men who had turned 21 since the first registration were registered; on 12 Sep 1918, all remaining men ages 18-21 and 31-41 who had not yet registered were registered.
        The World War II draft registrations provide: the person's full name, place of residence with address, age, birth place (city, state), date of birth, employer's name and address or name of business where appplicable, plus the name and address of person who will always know your address (often a parent, spouse, or child), and a physical description of the person. As with the World War I draft records, images of the documents in the original handwriting can be viewed at ancestry, but only from the fourth registration ("This registration included men born between 28 April 1877 and 16 February 1897;" see the article at ancestry.com) . (Data about race and physical description is provided on the reverse side, but this is not viewable online at ancestry.)
        The Civil War records are also useful--it is much easier to search through these and locate an ancestor than through the 1860 or 1870 censuses; again, information about occupation and residence is provided.
      • Death Records: these include state death records and the social security death index records; a state death record may include the person's county of residence at death, the exact date of death, and race; a social security death record includes the person's birth date, and also identifies the state where the social security card was first issued (which would be either where the person first worked or where he/she lived at some point a child).
      • The Census Records--1900, 1910, 1920, 1930, 1940: information in these includes place and date of birth, place of parents' births, immigration date, and occupation. The immigration date can be used to find immigration records. The occupation as well as birth dates and places may help one to trace an ancestor through several censuses. (I traced an ancestor using related railroad occupations, and may have [??] traced another by combining immigration records with an occupation as a laundress, and what I could infer of in her link to two towns--one in Massachusetts, the other Chicago.)

      • http://search.ancestry.com/search/category.aspx?cat=40 Immigration & Travel, from Ancestry.com. This is a basic introduction to Ancestry's immigration records, primarily passenger lists, also U.S.-Canadian border crossings, and finally naturalization records dating back to 1790. When it asks for a last name, give them at least the last name of any ancestor you know of who immigrated. See also the resource on locating passenger arrival records, http://www.ancestry.com/cs/Satellite?c=Learning_C&childpagename=USLearningCenter%2FLearning_C%2FPageDefault&cid=1265125320217&pagename=LearningWrapper.

      Family Search
      (Search records from the U.S. and also other countries here, including census records, military records and more)

      • https://familysearch.org/: Family Search.
        Besides the census records described below, the Family Search database contains birth, marriage, death, and divorce records. Vital records from outside the U.S. include records from the Bahamas and Canada, and also English parish records.
        There are also passenger arrival lists for New York's Ellis Island, New Orleans, Honolulu, and other U.S. cities, as well as for some other countries such as Brazil and New Zealand.
        Military records include army enlistment records and draft registration cards, war dead, veteran cemetary records, military pension records, U.S. Revolutionary War bounty land warrant applications, as well as United Kingdom Seamen records, and Panama Canal Zone employment records and sailing lists (1905-1937).
        Finally Family Search is an online source for Freedmen's Bureau Assistant Commissioner Records (1862-1870).
        To use its search engine:
        • Go to: https://familysearch.org/search.
        • Type in type in first name if you have it then last name of person you want to search for.
        • Now scroll down to "Filter results" and click on [Collections] to filter the search results by collection.
        • If you want census records, scroll down through the list of records available til you see "Censuses and lists." Select the census record[s] you want to peruse. As noted the U.S. censuses from 1830 to 1940 (excluding the 1890 census, most of which burnt in a fire) are available, along with the 1850 (but not the 1860) slave schedules.
        • If you prefer draft records, Other records available include World War I and some World II draft cards. The draft records for the three World War I registrations that took place between 1917 and 1918 ([1] for men aged 21-31 on June 5, 1917; [2] for men under 21 June 5, 1917 but 21 or over on June 5, 1918; and [3] for all men aged 18 to 45 on September 12, 1918), as well as the "old men's draft" records for World War II (for men who were aged 45 to 64 in 1942, born between 1877 and 1897) are available.
          These draft records indicate each registrant's current home address and age, birth place and birth date, employer, and place of employment. The World War 2 records also provide information about the registrant's spouse.
        • You can also indicate that you want to search records in countries outside of the U.S. such as Mexico, Taiwan, or Cuba, although fewer records will be available.


      National Records Archive (NARA)--Genealogy Research Room
      (The Research Room, The Freedmen's Bureau Records, Native American Enrollment Lists, and Military Records)


      (South Carolina and other States)

      County Formation Maps
      (Maps Showing Counties, Censued, and Dates of County Formation, County Boundaries)

      • http://www.mapofus.org/-- Click on a state to show its county formation maps -- what counties were censused in what years, and the county boundaries (boundaries indicate where people lived who were censused in a particular county)!
        Since county boundaries changed over time, an ancestor who lived in a particular county may have records in several counties -- for example ancestors of mine censused in 1820 in Walton County, GA, actually attended church, lived in a cabin, and were buried in what is now in Gwinnett County as they lived near Bethlehem. Likewise Clarke County, GA tax and census records were part of Jackson County, GA records till 1801. And one early "Georgia" County, Bourbon County, was established on the Mississippi in 1785 (see also the note on "Western boundaries" below), then eliminated three years later! This is why it is so important to check county formation maps to determine in what county a particular place was situated at the dates when your ancestors lived there -- as well as what counties it ultimately broke into! Then you'll know more about where to look for records.
        The early counties in realty had no western boundary! That is the settlers from Europe envisioned their counties as extending to the Pacific (though they would find themselves arguing with the Spanish over California). Thus even if you lived way to the West of a county, if no County had been established where you lived, you could pay taxes in an Eastern county. Before the formation of Walton County my Bethlehem ancestors probably paid taxes in Franklin County, established from Cherokee lands in 1784 (there are several persons with their last name listed on early Franklin County tax rosters in the 1700s).
        As noted the map indicates that Franklin was established from Cherokee lands! These maps show what Indian tribes were active in a region, what tribe's lands were included in a county! My a north Georgia Walton County ancestors all lived in Cherokee lands, above the Creek-Cherokee divide (the Creeks themselves were divided into upper and lower Creek but the maps alas do not distinguish these; see Carol Middleton's web site, Among the Creeks, indexed below, for more on the divide).
        When you click on a state, a page for that state loads. From that page, just scroll down till you see the "Interactive Map" of that state's "County Formation History". Then either click [play] or [next] to view successive county boundaries along with the dates the boundaries were set. (Clicking [next] allows you to view the changes at your own pace). If you have clicked [play], click [stop] to stop. After moving forward, you can click [previous] to move backwards in time.

      More About Places and Their People
      (Search link--for information on the people of a particular place!)

      Other Online Resources
      (Early Families, Immigrants and Passenger Lists, Surname Tracking, Lists of Slaves--primarily from Wills, Louisiana Slave Records, a link to Alex Haley's Family Tree)

      • General: General Surnames, Early Families, Immigrants:
        • http://www.searchforancestors.com/quicksearch/--this site lets you to search for a surname in a variety of databases, including those at Roots Web (which are free) and those at ancestry.com (which are not free but which the Fort Worth library subscribes to)

        • http://personal.linkline.com/xymox/ America's First Families. Focus is the colonial area, but unfortunately, there are many broken links. Contains pseudo 'message board' for posting queries about early families (a href="http://personal.linkline.com/xymox/families/ancfile1.htm" target='top'>http://personal.linkline.com/xymox/families/ancfile1.htm) plus links to other genealogy sites!

        • http://www.ellisisland.org/ The Statue of Liberty--Ellis Island Foundation, Inc.. Search for passengers who arrived at Ellis Island. There seem to be more records here than at ancestry--but maybe not as I cannot find here someone I found at ancestry. This site also has a Genealogy Learning Center at http://www.ellisisland.org/genealogy/index.asp.



      • African American
        • ftp://members.aol.com/slavedata/Public/ Index of ftp://members.aol.com/slavedata/Public (An amazing lists of slaves--by last name of owner generally--mostly taken from wills!)

        • http://www.afrigeneas.com/slavedata/ (Afrigeneas's African American Slave Data: This seems to be essentially the same collection of Wills, Inventories, and other records that is listed above; again it is indexed by surname.)
        • http://www.afrigeneas.com/surnames/ --Afrigeneas's African American Surnames: this site lists mainly the names of people collecting data on specific surnames.
          Surnames may often be derived from the names of the plantation owner, as slaves often just went by first name. Thus, the person tracking these has to track the movements of slaves through the plantations--through sales and wills, and through the marriages of the planters' families as well as through those of slaves themselves. The person also must track information about persons freed who have this name--persons who served in wars could be freed, or living among the Indians. You can email with specific questions about the names' histories, but also be sure to email these people when you encounter information about a surname--through a will, a document stating that someone was freed, or whatever. Don't send information that is important only to you and your cousins, of course--send that to your cousins!

        • http://www.ibiblio.org/laslave/ Afro-Louisiana History and Genealogy. Created out of the research of Dr. Gwendolyn Midlo Hall, now professor emerita of history at Rutgers. If you have ancestors from Louisiana, this very searchable site has documents about slaves from the time when Louisiana was French! Go to the search page (from the main page go to the [Introduction] then to [Search the Database]; you may also want to check out [How to Search], and fill out the form as completely as you can; feel free to leave some blanks.
          If you opt to [View Original Documents], they are in French, sometimes with elements of "Middle French" (French as spoken in the past). Click on the documents to enlarge them. Also check out the guide for deciphering the text in the originals below!

        • http://www.kintehaley.org/ Kunta Kinte-Alex Haley Foundation Check out the Haley Family Tree (but it downloads slowly) and also the resources sites indexed under Genealogy.



      • African and Native American

      Sites With Collections of Links to Other Resources
      (Collections of Links on Genealogy; some include ways families have told their stories)

      What About DNA?

      • http://www.africanancestry.com/ This is not a free resource, at last! African Ancestry offers DNA testing for folks who may have hit a brick wall using more traditional resources. It tests for the father's father's father . . . by checking the Y chromosome DNA (since only men have this chromosome, only men can get this test), and supposedly also the mother's mother's mother . . . as far back as can be done, by checking the mitochondrial DNA. (One news article I read said it might be possible for men to pass on mitochondrial DNA, too, however--Tallahassee Democrat, 2003. I am not sure whether both sexes can take the mitochondrial DNA test or only women; if both sexes can take this test, then men must have this DNA!!!)
        Problems with this DNA test include:
        (1), you have many other ancestors besides your father's father's father's & so on, and your mother's mother's mother's!; (2), the test does not indicate how long ago your ancestors split off from groups with similar Y chromosome ormitochondrial DNA, nor can they be sure without testing DNA from the world over that the DNA they link to Africa is not also found in some other place besides Africa. And the African peoples have migrated like others, so the geographic location of the DNA in Africa today may or may not be the same place that your ancestors lived in. Finally, the one specific ancestor this test tests for may not have been from Africa, even if all other ancestors are.
        What can the test do?
        It may give you an area to start researching with hopes of finding some story or ship's record to link to your ancestor, but working forwards in time from a vague location and possible tribal identity to your known ancestors is probably going to be difficult. Is it worth several hundred bucks? I do not know. I would suggest you read first Bolnick (2003), "Showing Who They Really Are": Commercial Ventures in Genetic Genealogy (http://shrn.stanford.edu/workshops/revisitingrace/Bolnick2003.doc.) (you can find an HTML version of this document at google.com).



      Off-line Resources
      (Books--history, genealogies, how-to)

      • http://www.genealogical.com/content/products_catalog.html Genealogy.com's catalogue of Offline Products, including books and CD's--for City Directories, Colonial Families, more.

      • Boddie, John Bennett. Historical Southern Families, with Mrs. John Bennett Boddie. 23 volumes. Research into trees, marriages of various early immigrants to the South. (See also http://www.genealogy.com/ifa/co_cd191.html, Southern Family Histories #1, 1600s-1800s.)

      • Lane, Mills. Masters and Slaves. 3 in The People of Georgia. Savannah, Georgia: The Beehive Press.
        This book contains many photos of slaves, slave housing, and plantations, especially photos from the 50's. It also contains photos of cotton mills, where some slaves were hired out, and mentions the names of a few slaves (a fugitive, William Ball), and planters.

      • Ball, Charles. (1998). Slaves in the Family. New York: Farrar, Straus, and Giroux.
        This book contains research into the lineage of the Ball slaves, and also into that of the Balls (with the George Chicken and Henry Laurens families) themselves. The Balls were one of the great South Carolina slave holders before the Civil War.

      • Fears, Mary L. Jackson. (1995). Slave Ancestral Research: It's Something Else. Bowie, Maryland: Heritage Books.
        This is an excellent story of one woman's very exhaustive search for her ancestors' records--which led her to the woman from whom she inherited her middle name, who was born around 1780. In the process, she has looked at records of several families--and if you have ancestors from Georgia, you may just find a name among these, but this book is best as a "how to" book. Of course, Ms. Jackson Fears not only got microfilms of records, but actually travelled as far as the Washington, D. C. archives to do some of her digging! If you can't travel, you may find a librarian who can help you with getting microfilms of some records.

       
      Notes
      1. Some marriage licenses available are listed online at ancestry.com.
      2. To locate an ancestor on the 1880 census, you will need to know what county to look in; if you know the name of the town and state, you may be able to locate the county on the maps at mapquest. Or try SE Genealogy's County Census and County Formation Maps (linked to above).
        (If you are having trouble trying to decide where someone lived in 1880, you might try first a later census--1890-1930 are available--and try to work backward. Of course, information about place of birth and parents' places of birth may 'change' slightly from census to census--and you'll have to try to sort out fact from fiction.) Since ancestry.com allows you to do a "ranked" search for your ancestors, you may be able to search for them without knowing the exact county they lived in. You'll also want to check the county census maps for the year(s) your ancestors lived in a particular area, as well as check county formation maps showing the formation of counties where your ancestors lived.
      3. Places to start looking for information about ancestors before 1880 include the 1870, 1860, and 1850 censuses. No individuals--except for heads of households--are listed by name in any U.S. census taken before 1850--all you can get is information about gender, presumed race, and approximate age. Slaves are not listed by name in the 1850 or 1860 census, but complete lists of slaves by age and gender are listed in the 1850 and 1860 slave schedules. Wills left by persons with the same last name are another place to look for information, as are oral histories of persons interviewed during the Great Depression at American Memory (online). Additional oral histories are at Documenting the American South (online). The last name taken by a person who was a slave could have been either that of the owner of a plantation on which that person lived or that of a parent. It may be possible that some persons sometimes used one name and sometimes another.
        Databases online at ancestry.com (which you can access through the Fort Worth library) that might be helpful include:
        • Freedmen Bureau Records of Field Offices, 1865-1872
        • 1850 U.S. Federal Census - Slave Schedules
          (also check out the 1850 Census Slave Schedules)
        • U.S. and International Marriage Records, 1560-1900
          (look for marriages just after 1860)
        • U.S. Colored Troops Military Service Records, 1861-1865
          (but note that all that is listed in this last database is the soldier's name and the location of the division served in!)
      4. Deciphering the Original French Documents: typical phrases plus translations; notes in brackets indicate the kind of information that goes in the preceding blank.
        • une Negresse: a Negress
        • un Negrillon: a Negro
        • nommée ____________ [name here; for women]: named ____________
        • nommé ____________ [name here; for men]: named ____________
        • ____________ [profession here] de profession: ____________ by trade
        • ____________ [race here] de la ____________ [country where brought from; often one in the Caribbean]: ____________ from the ____________
        • nation ____________ [country of origin here]: nation ____________
        • agée de ____________ [age in years here, for a woman, age written out in French; check out wordreference.com for translations of numbers] ans: aged ____________ years
        • agé de ____________ [age in years here, for a man] ans: aged ____________ years
        • une ____________ [profession/trade here; for women; such as "cuisinière," 'cook;' again wordreference.com may help translate the trades;]: a ____________
        • un ____________ [profession/trade here; "un" is masculine so this will be a man's trade]: a ____________
        • estimée à ____________ [price in piastres; for a woman] piastres: estimated at ____________ piastres
        • et son enfans [name of child follows]: and her child
    		  
     
     
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    (This page last updated by C. E. Whitehead 2014)