[or-roots] Research tips

[Leslie Chapman]

Someon on another list I am on was just wishing states other than MO made
thier vital records available the same way and I had to put in my two-bits
and since Stephanie posted that helpful note I thought I would also list the
resources here;

It is interesting how differently each state interprets their responsibility
and so forth with respect to what they make available; Arizona has a search
engine that works quite well and allows access to "selected" birth marriage
and death records. If you get lucky and the person you want is there, you
can get a pdf of the origanal image. as with all of these it is restricted
by what the state budget allows and your person might or might not be there.
Or maybe their record just doesn't exist.

Missouri as you say has a lot of stuff online, but birth pre 1917 or some
such is just an index, again they make selected records available as
downloads, but I believe only death as downloads. and no marriage?

wisconsin has a pre 1907 index that is just incredible, you get the citation
of where the original record is page book etc, the date of the event and
full name as it appears in the record, Illinois has a very good set up for
death records and pre 1916 marriage, but no birth or any thing else.
Michigan has a limited death index that provides you with image, but lord
help you trying to figure out how to restrict your search; there are pull
downs that give way too many options, but in them are things like "surname
only'
Washington has a very comprehensive index and provides a lot of marriage
originals and some other originals including selected censuses, but again
like all of them it is imcomplete (as far as I know none of these are even
close to "complete")
Oregon state archives has an index that gives you bare bones info,
Off the top of my head those are the only "state" indexes or online record
sources I know of, I am sure there are more in states I haven't worked in,
and there are lots of other indexes and resources for selected places.

People ask me why I don't have an ancestry account. I figure at my current
rate of progress I will only be twice as far behind in assimilating the free
stuff in ten years as I am now.
There is a BYU resource called Western States Data Base or some such that
gives access to Idaho death and marriage indexes to, as well as selected
marraiges from other western states.


THose who have been paying attention to my ongoing pursuit of the various
lines I often bring in here even though they aren't strictly speaking
"Oregon" questions will note that most of the migratory path Dale mentioned
earlier is covered by these states. Most of the states that are not listed
above are places that don't appear in my family file. Probably the only
important exceptions to that are NY, PA, CT and MA, none of whom seem to
have any online indexes or any other state provided genealogical resources.

Les C