IIGS™ Newsletter - September 1998
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IIGS™ Newsletter - September 1998
Genealogists often are unaware of the rich repositories of historical data held by universities. University collections always have provided historical researchers with primary and secondary documents carefully preserved for study by future generations. Yet, family historians often fail to tap into these resources.
In the past, university holdings were inaccessible to the average genealogist unless he or she lived in close proximity. But within the last decade or so, universities have been putting catalogues of their collections online. In many cases, these catalogues also contain archival listings. Some universities have even embarked on huge e-text projects, putting original documents such as the Magna Carta online.
I stumbled upon the University of Notre Dame archival listings quite by accident. I had entered one of my surnames into the Alta Vista search engine and was surprised to see the name come up at the Notre Dame archives site. When I clicked on the link, I discovered that the university had listed all of its students' names from the turn of the century and the years they attended the school. Further inspection at the site revealed a wealth of historical information dating from about the fifteenth century.
Each listing includes a brief summary of the historical document held by the archives. For example, the university holds many original documents from the time when Louisiana was held by Spain. Most are correspondence among bishops and priests of the diocese. Included are requests for marriage, complete with names of the intended. Other messages included requests from priests to marry, lists of the names of sisters living at a convent, and other examples of everyday Catholic church business.
Here are some university websites which are among my favorites:
University of Notre Dame Archives Guide
Lists of students of the University from 1850-1910
Teachers from 1850 to 1950
Online exhibit of some Civil War photographs by George Barnard
Calendar section features links to early historical documents in the archives; documents date back to 1576.UBC Special Collections and University Archives
The University of British Columbia has an impressive archival site, complete with the ability to search and a very long list of available documents which refer to British Columbia and Canadian history. Each link takes you to a summary of the holdings in the archive along with a brief biography.
Tufts University Archives: Collections and Resources
Tufts University has a page researchers will love. The page has links to primary resource holdings at universities and archives all over the world. The site is neatly catalogued by region or by state, county or province.
This University of New Orleans site contains links to electronic texts available on the Internet. For example, one link takes you to the University of Virginia's Online Text Center where about 20,000 texts are available online and offline in many different languages.