Posts about searching and using the records at NARA.
The most asked question this weekend will be “where were you?” I was living in Massachusetts and on my way to the doctor. The news on the radio said that something, probably a small plane, had hit the World Trade Center. By the time my appointment was over all hell had broken loose. The odd … Continue reading 10 Years Later: Remembering 9/11
Today's post is written by Erin Townsend, an archivist based out of Archives II who helps coordinate our digitization projects. This year marks the 50th anniversary of the establishment of the Peace Corps. Numerous events and activities have already taken place to commemorate this milestone, including programs at the Smithsonian Folklife Festival, 50th Anniversary World … Continue reading Happy 50th, Peace Corps!
Today's post is written by Denise Henderson. A few months ago, I was asked to locate a record about Pat Garrett, the famous sheriff who killed Billy the Kid in 1881 when cowboys and cattle thieves made the West wild and dangerous and a place in serious need of law enforcement. Understanding the index to, … Continue reading A few good lawmen
For today's post we are thrilled to open our blog space to NARA's Wikipedian-in-Residence, Dominic McDevitt-Parks. Everyone knows about Wikipedia (though there is certainly a lot of room for clarification of how it works in practice and why it is valuable for public history), so for this first post, I want to spotlight Wikisource, a … Continue reading Wikimedia and the new collaborative digital archives
By T. Juliette Arai A common research topic concerns information on military installations, i.e., forts, camps, depots, barracks, etc. Generally, the bulk of the records we have relate to permanent installations, but we do have a few records pertaining to some temporary posts. Records relating to military installations can be found in a number of … Continue reading Researching Forts at Archives I
Today’s guest blogger is Trevor Plante, a supervisory archivist at the National Archives in Washington, DC. Following up on two recent blog posts from our office by Juliette Arai and Mark Mollan I thought it would be a great opportunity to blog about one of my favorite Marine Corps documents that I often show Marines when we … Continue reading Music at the Archives – John Philip Sousa
By T. Juliette Arai RG 93 (War Department Collection of Revolutionary War Records), Entry 50 (Music Book, n.d.) As most researchers are aware, the National Archives has many records that are administrative in nature. In some very rare cases, however, we do come across a document that is so much more interesting than the everyday … Continue reading Music at the National Archives
Today's post is the first in an occasional series where we will highlight some of the work of our volunteers. Janet Hodges is a volunteer with the Volunteer Office at the National Archives at College Park. First, this isn’t about genealogy; I don’t like genealogy. I leave that exercise to my daughter who enjoys spending … Continue reading Finding My Father in the Archives
Today's post is written by Monique Politowski, an archives technician who works on the NARA/Ancestry digitization partnership project in Silver Spring, Maryland. Millions of records have been converted to digital form since the partnership between NARA and Ancestry.com began in 2008, and some of the most popular records digitized as a result of this union … Continue reading The “Re-Encarnacion” of NARA’s Records
Today’s post is written by archivist David Langbart who works primarily with diplomatic records. In my earlier post about Despatches, I noted that the correct spelling in Department of State usage is dEspatch and not dIspatch. After writing that post, purely by serendipity, I located a document that shows just how seriously the Department of … Continue reading Foreign Service Friday: Despatch vs. Dispatch
