Some people eat, sleep and chew gum, I do genealogy and write...

Sunday, August 22, 2010

Have you looked at Community Trees? Why not?

Quoting from the Community Trees website,
Community Trees are lineage-linked genealogies from specific time periods and geographic localities around the world. The information also includes the supporting sources. Most of the genealogies are joint projects between FamilySearch and others who live locally or have expertise in the area or records used to create the genealogies. Each Community Tree is a searchable database with views of individuals, families, ancestors and descendants, as well as printing options.

The scope of partner projects may be a small, grass roots village or township working together to form a family tree of all the known residents of its community for a given time period. Some are genealogical and historical societies working with FamilySearch to index several sources of data to link them to common, lineage-linked genealogies of a targeted geographic area of interest.

The scope could also be focused on a particular record set and locality. The goal may be to identify and reconstitute all families of a particular place from a village, county, or even a country. Many of the current projects were produced by FamilySearch's Family Reconstitution team and date back to the medieval times. One even has the audio of the oral genealogies attached.
These are REAL genealogy records, as noted above, with sources. The focus of each set of records in rather limited but the depth of the records is spectacular. When I first viewed this site, I wondered if it was a demonstration site or would languish in obscurity with only a few entries. In a recent view, I am heartened to see many recent additions. Here are some examples of very recently added collections:
United States: Utah: Greeks in the West: Community Tree: 5000+ Greek men immigrated to the Western United States between 1900 and 1924 -- many to work in the mines and on the railroads of Utah, Colorado, Wyoming and Nevada. This is an on-going project to document the lineage and preserve the heritage of these immigrants and their descendents. It is part of the Western Hellenic Library (www.westernhellenicancestry.com) and the Ethnic and Mining Museum of Magna. Initial work is focused on the mining communities in Carbon and Salt Lake counties of Utah. Updated 10 Aug 2010
United States, Tennessee, Campbell County Community Tree: The Campbell County Community Tree is in a beginning phase starting from GEDCOM files containing more than four decades of research on families from this area (including notes and sources for the sources of that information). New sources being added include information from databases (such as Campbell County marriage records), extracted information from digitized books online to pick up strays who migrated to other states, and other genealogically dense material from reference works on Campbell and surrounding counties. New 12 Aug 2010
Scotland: Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticanae: Lineage linked families for ministers of the Church of Scotland from the Reformation. Updated 10 June 2010
Liechtenstein: Balzers, St. Nicholai: This file contains all individuals recorded in the records of St. Nicholai Catholic parish, Balzers, Liechtenstein which are found in FHL films #1186667 and #1186668. These films contain birth, confirmation, marriage and death records up to 1838. All individuals have been linked into extended families where possible. Source information is included in the Notes of each individual. This file containing about 5300 names. NEW 25 June 2010

 If you happen to connect with any of these studies, you have hit a goldmine.  This list goes on and on. You have to take a look at these records.

2 comments:

  1. Thanks James! I know my great grandfather, Rev William Henry Porter, Minister of Cults, is listed in the Fasti Ecclesiae Scoticana and a quick search found him, his parents and his brothers listed. If I had just been starting out on researching my family, I'd have been over the moon with Community Trees. I'm sure it will be very useful - and sourced too! Hurray!

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  2. James, thank you so much for your post on Community Trees. I was not aware of this web-site. Maybe I should have been, but I was not. You made my day! I took a quick look and found my Jacques Miville dit Deschenes / Catherine Baillon line immediately. My guess is I'll find lots of my other Quebec and Acadian ancestors as well. Thanks again!

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