Today's post comes from guest blogger Doug Remley, who is a student research room technician in Research Services (RD-DC) at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC. Doug offers a history lesson on how the Census Bureau celebrated the 150th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. Future posts will include some of the unique findings … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Census Bureau exhibit at the 1926 U.S. Sesquicentennial Exhibition, Part I
Today's post comes from Pascal Massinon, recipient of the 2012 National Archives Legislative Archives Fellowship. Pascal is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of History at the University of Michigan, and will be using records at the National Archives to research his dissertation topic, "Home Taping: Participant Listeners and the Political Culture of Home Recording … Continue reading Mixtapes in Da Nang
In this post I'd like to highlight a particular set of records that probably don't get as much attention as they deserve: certificates of discharge for Regular Army soldiers from the War of 1812. The most likely reason for the slight attention these wonderful records receive is likely the fact that only a small portion … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: War of 1812 certificates of discharge
June 18, 2012--the anniversary of the U.S. declaration of war against Great Britain--marked the official start of the bicentennial of the War of 1812. To help celebrate that anniversary and bring attention to one of America's lesser known conflicts, let's take a look at some of the records of that war, starting with an essential … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: War of 1812 Pension Files Online
The following post is by guest bloggers Rebecca Warlow, Description and Digitization Supervisor, and Ann Cummings, Supervisory Archivist for Textual Records. At the DC-Area Researchers Forum in November we announced that some records would be moving from the National Archives at College Park to the National Archives at St. Louis in 2012. The time has … Continue reading Records Heading West to St. Louis
We know that you must be wondering when the dust will settle in the Archives I research center. So far, the classroom, finding aids room, and microfilm research room have been reconfigured. The cork floor and the new wood paneling are beautiful. The floor in the research commons (lobby) remains a work in progress. When … Continue reading Progress Report on Construction Activities in the Archives I Research Center
Today's post is written by Katie Dishman, of the National Archives at Chicago. “The following program is brought to you in living color by CBS.” Wait. That’s not right. But it might have been if the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) had its way back in 1950. The variation of the long-used advertising slogan by the … Continue reading Communications Commission Creates Confrontational and Cacophonic Court Case
Researchers are invited to read the minutes of the Researcher Forum meeting on May 18, 2012, posted to the DC-area Researcher Forum web page. The main feature of the meeting was a discussion with NARA’s digitization partners: Sabrina Petersen from Ancestry.com; Aaron Spencer from Fold3 (formerly Footnote.com); and John de Jong from FamilySearch.org. Rebecca Warlow … Continue reading DC-Area Researcher Forum Meeting Minutes from May 18th Available
Today’s guest blog post comes from Rick Blondo, management and program analyst involved with NARA building projects. A new Microfilm Research Room is scheduled to open on Monday, May 21, 2012, in the Robert M. Warner Research Center in the National Archives Building, Washington, DC. It will house 27 researcher carrels, 5 public use computers … Continue reading New Microfilm Research Room Set to Open at Archives I on May 21
This question just came in from a fan of the National Archives: Is there a consensus as to which presidential inaugural address was the best? I recognize that in this case "beauty is in the eye of the beholder" and it may be more accurate to think of the top five rather than single one … Continue reading Which presidential inaugural address was the best?
