Innovation Hub Celebrates 300,000th Page Uploaded to Catalog

Today's post comes from Catherine Brandsen, National Archives Innovation Hub Coordinator Earlier this month, the Innovation Hub uploaded its 300,000th page for inclusion in the National Archives Catalog. Amazingly, this milestone took less than three years to achieve. Digitization opens up access to our records. Of the 13 billion paper records in the National Archives, … Continue reading Innovation Hub Celebrates 300,000th Page Uploaded to Catalog

Introduction to Military Records at the National Archives

This year the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA) will host a Virtual Genealogy Fair on September 3–4, 2013. As part of the planned programming, the Virtual Fair will include introductory sessions on civilian and military records at NARA that are useful for genealogical research. Military service, of course, represents one of the major aspects … Continue reading Introduction to Military Records at the National Archives

Family Tree Friday: 1940 Census – Following the instructions (of the enumerators!)

This week's blog post comes once again from guest blogger Diane Petro, Archives Technician in the Research Support Branch at the National Archives Building in Washington, DC.  Diane is working on reference activities relating to the upcoming 1940 census release. Researchers often go to the Instructions to the Enumerator when trying to interpret a question … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: 1940 Census – Following the instructions (of the enumerators!)

Archives 360°: “Keeping Humans in the Loop” in Chicago

Founded in 1936, the Society of American Archivists (SAA) celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. During the week of August 22, almost 1,800 archives professionals from all over the globe gathered in Chicago, Illinois for SAA’s annual meeting and anniversary celebration. Today's blog features my introductory remarks for SAA session #701 that I chaired, "New Perspectives for the 1940 Census" providing a quick history of innovative technologies used for processing and accessing census data.

Family Tree Friday: Online RIPs for Military and Civilian records

The more we interact with the public, whether at national conferences or NARA-sponsored events such at the annual Genealogy Fair, the more we hear how much researchers would like to see our finding aids available online.  Well, this seems like a good opportunity to point out that two of our most popular genealogy Reference Information … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Online RIPs for Military and Civilian records

Tech Tuesday: Applied Research puts NARA "Out in Front" at NAGARA

At the NAGARA plenary address in Nashville a few weeks ago, I was asked to talk about NARA’s new Applied Research Division, which wandered into an explanation about why we haven’t been ERA Research for the past two years. Folks were encouraged to attend my 1940 Census session, featuring NARA research partners who are using cool smart tools to make sense out of scanned images—there was not an empty chair in the room, leading to fruitful discussions and promising collaborations…and that’s what you missed at NAGARA! Read the full story here...

Ask Away on #Ask Archivists Day!

The National Archives will be here to answer all your archival questions on June 9th!  Known as Ask Archivists Day, this worldwide event on Twitter will bring together the people who collect, care for, and research archival records in one space where questions from general research practices to whether a repository has your ancestor's information … Continue reading Ask Away on #Ask Archivists Day!

Birds of a Feather Flock Together: Blogger Meet-Up at the Genealogy Fair!

Are you a genealogy blogger?  Do you have questions for NARA, whether it be about blogging or records?  Then we have the event for you!  This year at the 7th Annual Genealogy Fair, The National Archives will be hosting a meet-up to bring together genealogist bloggers and spark some good conversation about the records you … Continue reading Birds of a Feather Flock Together: Blogger Meet-Up at the Genealogy Fair!

Family Tree Friday: How to make sense out of a Civil War pension file…with some online help!

Have you ever looked at a Civil War pension file and wondered, what does this all REALLY mean? More specifically, have you ever tried to figure out what each document or slip of paper actually was, where it came from, and what relevance it had to the file as a whole?  Believe it or not, … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: How to make sense out of a Civil War pension file…with some online help!

Family Tree Friday: Check out AAD for 20th century military databases.

As a way to wrap up the discussion about records relating to military service in the 20th century, it would be a good idea to check out the electronic records available on NARA's Access to Archival Databases (AAD) . AAD is an online resource available on the NARA web site at http://aad.archives.gov/aad/ and contains a … Continue reading Family Tree Friday: Check out AAD for 20th century military databases.