As promised back in Week 1 of the SLP for Library Staff, here is the second part of Ancestry Library Edition. (And, truthfully, I could do many, many posts dedicated to Ancestry!)
In addition to Census records, Ancestry has eleven other categories of resources. They include: Birth, Marriage, and Death; Military; Immigration & Travel; Newspapers & Publications; Pictures; Stories, Memories & Histories; Maps, Atlases & Gazetteers; Schools, Directories & Church Histories; Tax, Criminal, Land & Wills; Reference, Dictionaries & Almanacs; and Family Trees. To get this list of collections, select the New Collection tab from the toolbar.
In addition to the listing of collections, you can also see all the new and updated databases and the number of records associated with each. My plan for this week's post was to focus on Military Records... but this updated resource caught my eye. My dad and husband both served in the U.S. Navy, and both of their ships are covered here. I just had to explore these resources.
According to the description on Ancestry, U.S. Navy Cruise Books are "yearbook-style books assembled by volunteers on board ship to commemorate a deployment." As I browsed through them, they reminded me of my high school yearbooks—without all the signatures. You can browse the collection by ship name by using the drop down menu and choosing the appropriate ship. Or you can search by name or keyword. A couple things I discovered in using this particular resource are that most sailors were identified by their first initial and last name, and the yearbook is organized by their duties and rank. It might be helpful to know the rank of the person you're looking for. For example, the 1983 USS Carl Vinson Yearbook is 478 pages long! As I can personally attest, it's great fun and an easy way to lose track of time to browse through these resources!
My dad served on the USS Tattnall from 1962 - 64. While the yearbook for the time he served isn't in Ancestry, I browsed through the 1966 yearbook and learned more about the USS Tattnall and found this photograph of the ship. I'll be sharing this one with my dad!
This is one small piece of the Military records collection in Ancestry. You can also explore WWI and WWII Draft Registration Cards, lists of casualties, prisoner rolls, pension records, and more. You'll find military records from the U.S. including some from the Revolutionary War and records from other countries, too. For example, you can find the records from Australia, Imperial Force Burials at Gallipoli, 1915. What resource catches your eye?
Thank you for reading and participating in our first SLP for Library Staff. I hope you enjoyed exploring some of our online resources and learned something along the way. I know I did. Have a great rest of the summer!