Simply Mahvalous Websites and Blogs

Dae Powell over at Shoe String Genealogy has written a most informative and useful article about reading and deciphering different handwriting styles through the years.  His site is full of help for beginners and seasoned genealogists alike.  I love his page of charts, forms and checklists and his article on the Works Progress Administration (WPA) is brilliant!

Probing The Past, Virginia and Maryland Probate Inventories 1740-1810 is brought to you by George Mason University, Gunston Hall Plantation and Virginia Foundation for the Humanities.  Probate records provide valuable information about the lifestyles of people during the colonial and early national periods.  325 probate inventories from the Chesapeake region of Maryland and Virginia for the period of 1740 to 1810 were transcribed and the household items entered into a searchable database.  This is the place to learn all about Colonial Era probates.

Repositories of Primary Sources for the Western United States and Canada can be found on the University of Idaho Special Collections site.  

Pattie and Pam are the authors of Technology Tamers.  This blog is devoted to using MS word for genealogy.  Each post is a lesson on how to do a specific task in MS Word.  Check out the Label list in the left sidebar.  They make it so easy to understand, even I can follow the instructions!

Documenting the American South is a digital publishing iniative that provides access to text, images and audio files related to southern history, literature and culture.  It currently has 15 collections of books, diaries, posters, artifacts, letters, oral history interviews and songs.  The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill sponsors the site and the texts and materials come primarily from its holdings.    Here I found oodles of information about the Methodist Church in North Carolina.  My 3rd great grandfather - H.A.T. Harris was a Methodist minister.  He started out as a Circuit Rider in Lincoln County, North Carolina and ended up as the minister of the Methodist church in Montezuma, Poweshiek County, Iowa. His life as a minister is documented and much of it in the archives maintained by the Methodist church.