DistantCousin.com News

Pro-genealogists Top 50 Genealogy Web Sites

2008-04-03T09:54:00.000-07:00

Congratulate us! DistantCousin.com made the grade of the top 50 most popular genealogy web sites as compiled by the folks at ProGenealogists.com. This list was compiled as a result of study of website traffic rankings as computed by Alexa.com, Compete.com, Quantcast.com, and Ranking.com. We don't usually put much stock in these sorts of things - they're nice and that's about it - but your intrepid webmaster needs something to brag about right now! Here is our award:

Story of the Forty Seventh (Heavy Artillery), 1919

2008-03-28T09:17:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to provide for your free use:

The Story of the Forty Seventh (Heavy Artillery), 1919 - Being the History of a Regiment of Heavy Artillery made up of men from every state in the Union, from its formation to demobilization, written by members of the regiment.

"The Forty-seventh Coast Artillery Corps was organized in August, 1918, at Camp Eustis, near Norfolk, Virginia. To this camp were sent men from nearly all the coast defenses of the United States, but mainly from Fort McKinley, Maine; Fort Trotten, New York; Fort Hancock, New Jersey; and the coast defenses of California and Texas. They assembled gradually, group by group, until there were sufficient men and officers to fill the quota for our regiment. We found that every State in the Union was represented, but the majority of our men were sons of Illinois, New York and Texas."

This publication contains a complete roster as well as numerous accounts of the experiences of the men, many of which are quite humourous. I hope you enjoy the book as much as I did.

Newport, Rhode Island 1921 City Directory

2008-03-26T06:25:00.001-07:00

We have scanned and made available for your free use the Newport, Rhode Island City Directory for 1921. This work includes a residential directory, information about churches, companies, organizations, a business directory and lots of information about the town. You can view the residential directory by locating particular surnames here:

A B C D E F G H I .. J K L M N O P Q .. R S T X .. V W Y .. Z

All other listings can be accessed via the Main Directory Page.

Twelfth U. S. Infantry, 1919

2008-03-25T10:56:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to make available for your free use the following publication:

Twelfth U. S. Infantry, Its Story - By Its Men, 1919 Compiled by John P. Wall

This publication tells the story of the 12th before, during and after their participation in the "Great War." Many photographs have been scanned including the officers, camps, etc. of the Twelfth. The publication includes a full roster which can be searched from the following form:

(enter last name):

Site Problems Cleared

2008-03-25T06:58:00.000-07:00

After about a week of sleepless nights and extraordinarily boring tasks, the problems on the server seem to have been cleaned up, at least for the time being. Searching should function properly 99.9% of the time now. If the problem resurfaces, we will migrate to a new server. Thank you for your patience. We can now get back to putting new data online.

Site Problems

2008-03-20T07:41:00.000-07:00

If you've been on DistantCousin.com recently, perhaps you were surprised to find little or no data pertaining to your surname(s) of interest. That's most likely not because we didn't have any data. We have just become aware of a problem with our server. We are trying to fix it now but I'll make no guarantees. Traffic volume has caused the service by which we index our pages and make them searchable to overload. For example, the surname "Jones" right now returns no hits in, for example, the military records section. Obviously, that's not possible but that's what our server is returning to you when you search. If you have problems searching on DistantCousin.com, please do not assume we have no data. We should be able to clear this up within a few days.

Brunswick Boys in the World War

2008-03-19T05:02:00.000-07:00

We have added the following to our collection of World War I military records:

Brunswick (Maine) Boys in the World War

which was included in the Annual Report of the Selectman of the Town of Brunswick for the year from February 1, 1918 to February 1, 1919. This list was compiled by Thomas H. Riley, Jr., Brunswick Town Historian, and includes 496 soldiers and sailors who "claim allegiance to Brunswick either as citizens or former residents, who have done their bit in the great war."

New Record For Site

2008-03-19T04:59:00.001-07:00

DistantCousin.com set a new high water mark on Saint Patrick's Day with over 21,000 visitors to the site and more than one quarter million page views including over 100,000 images of historical documents viewed by our visitors. This represents our highest traffic day since the site started, almost ten years ago.

Hudson, New Hampshire 1906 Birth Records

2008-03-18T07:57:00.000-07:00

We have posted online Births Registered in the Town of Hudson, New Hampshire for the year ending Dec 31, 1906 which includes births for the following surnames (including mothers' maiden names): Abbott Aderson Anderson Andrew Annis Barnard Beal Buckham Caron Church Clyde Collins Conery Connell Duchesnean Durivage Eayrs Edwards Eldridge Fish Flanders Hanscom Harwood Holton Hunter Koaian Kochakian Lambert Leslie Lillibridge Longard McArthur McCoy Morey Oben Phillips Rancoure Realeau Rivers Robinson Rounsavelle Shepard Sigel Smith Southerland Stacy Thorne Webster Wells Willett

These records were scanned from a series of publications entitled "Annual Reports of the Selectmen, Treasurer, Police Court, Public Library, Board of Education, and Auditors of the Town of Hudson, For the ear ending ..." We have 19 years worth of these publications and will be placing online all vital statistics (birth, deaths, marriages) from them in the next couple of days for years ending December 31, 1907 - 1911 and 1913 - 1925. We may not have time to announce these as they come online. If you are interested in viewing these records, check on the following pages where the transcriptions will be listed as they come online:

New Hampshire Birth Records; New Hampshire Marriage Records; New Hampshire Obituaries and Death Records

West Virginia University 1928-29 Directory of Faculty and Students

2008-03-18T07:29:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to provide for your free use in family history research the West Virginia University Directory of Faculty and Students 1928-29, edited by William A. Thornhill, class of 1930, and published under the direction of Young Men's Christian Association of West Virginia University, with the cooperation of the Registrar of the University.

This publication provides a resource to locate the school year residences of students, faculty and members of the administration. There is also a clssified business directory listing local businesses including some individual proprietors who are clothiers, dentists, etc. As such it is a resource for some not attending the school. The "who's who on the campus" section provides some additional information for those seeking information about their ancestors.

Portland, Oregon - Its History and Builders

2008-03-17T04:38:00.000-07:00

We are pleased to present for your free use: Portland, Oregon - Its History and Builders in connection with the antecedent explorations, discoveries and movements of the pioneers that selected the site for the Great City of the Pacific. This work was originally published by The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., Chicago-Portland, in 1911 and consists of almost 800 pages of biographical sketches including some family history information for approximately 200 families who formed the foundation of Portland Oregon. The work includes portraits for a number of these prominent citizens. This is an interesting read for anyone interested in Portland history or with a connection to any of the families.

The primary surnames in this work incude:

Adams Ainsworth Alger Alisky Anderson Andrew Annand Armstrong Arnold Arrigoni Avery Ayer Bailey Baker Baldwin Barber Barbour Barbur Beach Beall Beck Beckwith Beekman Beharrell Bennett Berry Bettman Beveridge Bigger Biles Bingham Birell Blair Blakely Blossom Blumauer Boise Bond Bouton Boyhan Bradley Bridges Bristol Brodie Bronaugh Brong Brown Buckman Burgard Burkhardt Burton Bushong Byars Cameron Cannon Carey Carson Carter Cartwright Chalmers Chapin Chipman Christie Clark Clarke Coffey Colt Connell Cook Corbett Cornelius Couch Cox Crawford Crichton Crouch Crowley Damphoffer Davis Dawson Deady Dean Deaver Dekum Dieck Dolph Donovan Downing Drinker Durham Eastman Edlefsen Ell Emmons Engleman Esson Evans Failing Farrell Ferris Fields Finzer Flanders Fleischner Flick Fliedner Flynn Foley Frank Frazer Frazier Freeman Fulton Gallien Galvani Ganong Gantenbein Garrigus Gates George Gibbs Giltner Glisan Goddard Going Goldsmith Goode Grant Gray Gridley Hall Hamilton Harper Harvey Haseltine Hawkins Hawthorne Hazen Henderson Henrichsen Henry Herrin Hewitt Hexter Hidden Hill Himes Hirsch Hodge Hogue Holbrook Holman Holmes Hudson Hughes Hunt Hyskell Jackson Jacobson Jaggar Jeffery Johnson Kamm Keating Keats Kelly Kern Kerr King Kollock Kraemer Krimbel Labbe Ladd LaForce Laidlaw Landess Langford Langsdorf Lawrence Lee Lent Leonard Lewis Lindsley Littlefield Logan Lotan Lucas Lumsden Lyon Mackay MacMahon MacMaster MacMillan MacNaughton Macrum Magers Manley Mann Marquam Marshall Mayer McChesney McCourt McGrath McKenna McKinnell McMaster McPherson Meier Melton Mendenhall Merges Miller Mills Miners Mock Montague Moore Morrow Moser Muir Mulkey Murdoch Murphy Neal Neuhausen Nichols O'Brien O'Hara Olds Page Paget Parker Paxton Perkins Peterson Phegley Pittock Platt Plummer Porter Powell Pratt Price Prudhomme Rauw Reid Riddell Riggs Risley Roberts Rogers Rowe Rowley Ryan Savier Scadding Schnabel Schuyler Scott Seaman Sharkey Shepherd Sheppard Sherlock Sichel Sitton Slattery Slaughter Slocum Smith Soderberg Sparks Spencer Stanley Starkweather Starr Stearns Steinecke Storey Stout Strahan Strowbridge Stuart Summers Sutcliffe Swan Swank Sweek Taggart Talbot Taylor Teal Tenney Thompson Trimble Trommald Uhlman Upton Uren Van Houten Van Vleet Vaughan Velguth Wakabayashi Wakefield Walling Walls Ward Watson Watts Weeks Weidler Weinhard Wells Whalley Wheelwright White Wickersham Wilbur Wilcox Wiles Wiley Williams Wilson Wintler Woodard Woodcock Woodward Wrenn Wright

You can view these surnames by going through the following index:

A B C D E F G H J K L M N .. O P R S T U .. V W

Yearbook of North Dakota State College, 1934

2008-03-14T05:07:00.000-07:00

We have scanned an original copy of:

The Bison, Yearbook of North Dakota State College, 1934

and made it available for your free usage on the site. This addition of The Bison is dedicated to the university's "Little Country Theatre" which was nurtured by Alfred G. Arvold. There are many photographs as well as extensive commentary describing the theatre and the role it has played in the lives of the school and surrounding community.

The images of these pages have been shrunk quite a bit in order to permit quick loading of the pages. We have higher resolution images available for anyone who has a personal connection to this institution. If the page you are interested in is not a very good image,let us know and we will endeavor to get you a better copy.

New Hampshire Marriage Records

2008-03-13T12:19:00.000-07:00

We have begun compiling a new database for

New Hampshire Marriage Records

which includes marriage records from town annual reports for select years for the towns of Alstead, Dover, Grafton, Newbury, Newington, Peterboro and Whitefield. These records can be very helpful as they frequently include mother and father of bride and groom's place of birth, mother's maiden name and other helpful data. We have a large volume of these records and will be posting them online gradually over the next two years.