Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Another Day of Mining for Genealogy Gold

There is definitely gold in the states.  And you thought there was gold only in California?  Nope, you are wrong.

I just discovered gold in Connecticut, of all places!  The Connecticut State Library has a great digital collection.  The Connecticut State Library Digital Collections has many images and collections, but I found the Account Books, Diaries, and Journals to be very helpful.  It is thrilling to discover a nugget buried somewhere and such is the case of digital images of Capt. N. Lyon's Cash Book No. 2, ca 1856-1861.  He kept the cash book while serving in Co. B, 2nd Infantry of the US Army.  If you think cash books and account books are mundane, think again.  Something like this may be the only place you'll be able to place an ancestor at a given time.
Capt. N. Lyon's Cash Book No. 2


Miners expect to find gold and other minerals in Montana.  The Montana Historical Society has a digital collection in the Montana History Project.  This consists of diaries, letters, documents, brand records, county histories, maps, military enlistments and even state prison records.  Since I got lost looking for Badger Creek, it seemed like a good idea to check out the Montana Place Names web site.  I entered Badger Creek (Glacier) as a place name and presto there appeared a topographical map showing me exactly where I need to stake my claim and start mining.

I heard there was gold in Wyoming, so decided to check out the Wyoming State Archives.  There might be newspapers there that I can check for information on diggins.  Found them at the Wyoming Newspaper Project.  Those people have been busy.  They have converted over 800,000 newspaper pages into digital format.

Spending more time in Wyoming before moving on.  Keep checking on my mining progress as I bring you news as to what I'm finding.  So far I have been striking gold!

Ruby --- the mining genealogist!

1 comment:

RogueGen said...

I love these websites! There are several Overland trail diaries online through the Wyoming Archives that I used for my thesis.

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