Additional Genealogical Resources
Neighboring Counties
Fannin
Lamar
Red River
Hunt
Delta
Franklin
Titus
Morris
Van Zandt
Rains
Wood
Camp
Upshur
Hopkins County
Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce – The Hopkins County Chamber of Commerce website provides business resources, contact information for local businesses, and news of upcoming events.
Front Porch News – a link to local news website
Hopkins County Courthouse – official website of the County of Hopkins with information about each county office and the historic Hopkins County Courthouse.
Southwest Dairy Museum – information about tours at the museum
Texas
Biographical Souvenir of the State of Texas – Published in 1889 with 944 pages of biographical info, with a full name index. Note: Mostly east/north and much of central Texas, not a lot from west or far south Texas.
Dolph Briscoe Center for American History UT – A leading history research center with online digital collections that include Bexar Archives Online, Sanborn Maps, Natchez Trace Collections and several photograph collections along with many other collections. Webiste has an abundance of information to help researchers.
Gammel’s “The Laws of Texas” – H.P.N. Gammel’s The Laws of Texas (1822-1897) has long been one of the most important primary resources for the study of Texas’ complex history during the 19th century. His monumental compilation charts Texas from the time of colonization through to statehood and reveals Texas’ legal history during crucial times in its development.
Handbook of Texas History Online – A great resource for historic events and biographies of memorable people related to Texas. Various free databases to search.
Portal to Texas History – Historical Texas documents digitized by the University of North Texas. It includes many newspapers, legal documents, and more.
Prints and Photographs Collections – From the Texas State Archives, it includes over 750,000 images.
Texas Archival Resources Online – TARO (Texas Archival Resources Online) makes descriptions of the rich archival, manuscript, and museum collections in 40+ repositories across the state available to the public. The site consists of the collection descriptions or “finding aids” that archives, libraries, and museums create to assist users in locating information in their collections.
TexasCourthouses.com – check out this website for details on Texas courthouses
Texas Digital Archive – “The Texas Digital Archive (TDA) manages, preserves, and facilitates access to the electronic records collections of the Texas State Library and Archives Commission, including those transferred by State agencies or digitized by the State Archives. All records visible in this portal are unrestricted and available for public use.”
Texas General Land Office Archives – Resources in the online Archives and Records of the Texas General Land Office include 2.5 million full-color scanned documents, as well as basic information on all documents constituting the Land Grants of the General Land Office. Detailed research on nearly 45,000 Land Office maps, sketches and drawings ― some dating back more than 300 years ― can be done on the Searchable Map Database. Easily search for ancestors with the alphabetized GLO Surname Index.
Texas State Genealogical Society – information about the State Society and upcoming events
Texas State Library and Archives Commission – Genealogy Department – Information about the archives and available documents.Archived government records dating back to the 18th century, as well as newspapers, journals, books, manuscripts, photographs, historical maps, and other historical resources. Some indexes and finding aids are available online
Texas World War I Records, 1917-1920 – Collection is available through familysearch.org and gives a timeline of Texas ancestor’s service in the Great War.
The Olden Times – a website featuring various Texas newspaper articles
TXGenWeb Project – County webpages contain useful online databases, historical background information, contact information, and much more. (free)
TXGenWeb Project Archives – search the archives for your ancestors
USA
Access Genealogy – AccessGenealogy.com contains the largest collection of free genealogy for United States research. Find hundreds of thousands of free websites with billions of names to use to further your family genealogy! They provide sources for birth records, death records, marriage records, census records, tax records, church records, court records, military records, historical newspapers, cemeteries, and ethnic records. They also provide some historical details about different times and people in America’s history. Their specialty, however, is Native American genealogy and research.
Bureau of Land Management – Provides free live access to Federal land conveyance records for the Public Land States, including image access to more than five million Federal land title records issued between 1820 and the present. They also have images related to survey plats and field notes, dating back to 1810.
Chronicling America – Free site to search America’s historic newspaper pages from 1836-1922 or use the U.S. Newspaper Directory to find information about American newspapers published between 1690-present. Chronicling America is sponsored jointly by the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Library of Congress
Dead Fred – A free repository of abandoned photographs from all over the US collected and put on line in hopes of finding family members to claim them. Searchable by surname, location and more.
Family Search – Family history and genealogy records administered by the LDS. Site is free but requires registration to view images. There are also images not included in the online search that can be viewed plus others on microfilm that can ordered. The ordered film has a small fee charged.
Find-A-Grave – Excellent free website for finding burials and cemeteries.
Genealogy Branches – This free site has listings of online County histories, biographies and indexes. Listings are by State and then by County.
Genealogy Trails – Volunteer site that contains transcribed genealogical and historical data
for the free use of all researchers.
Hathitrust – is a partnership of academic and research institutions, offering a collection of millions of titles digitized from libraries around the world.
Internet Archive – is a non-profit library of millions of free books, movies, software, music, websites, records, and more.
Library of Congress (LC) – is the research library that officially serves the United States Congress and is the de facto national library of the United States. It has books, maps, photos, and newspapers.
NYC Genealogy – Great site with lots of how to information to help get started researching and doing genealogy. Links to many other genealogical sites.
Rootsweb – a free online community of message boards, mailing lists, genealogy websites, and family trees. It was bought by Ancestry in 2000. The WorldConnect Project allows users to upload, modify, link, and display their family trees as a means to share their genealogy with other researchers.
The Ultimate Beginner’s Guide to Genealogy – Site loaded with how-to’s and suggestions for beginning genealogical research.
USGenWeb Project Archives – view the state pages and archives.Archived material from US GenWeb project websites. Older material, some from websites that are no longer active.
USGenWeb Project Home Page – learn about the USGenWeb Project and sources available. Free genealogy websites for genealogical research in every county and every state of the United States.
USGenWeb Search Engine – search the state archive pages
Helps
A Guide to Researching the History of a House – Multiple internet sources that give information on how to research the history of a house.
Ancestry.com Wiki – This wiki is a free website that is editable by anyone. For example, anyone can edit, update, or add articles, and a wiki can tap into the strengths and experience of a community. Every change that is made is saved so if someone makes a change that turns out not to be right, it’s easy to revert to an earlier version. As users make changes, they include reasons for their changes, so that others can see what happened and why. If there is ever a conflict about a change, each article has a discussion page, where users can figure out the best way to go.
Behind the Name – Look up a first name or a surname to see its origin and meaning.
Billion Graves – This is another free website used for locating burials.
Cyndi’s List – over 64,000 links at your fingertips. Free website that gives a comprehensive, categorized & cross-referenced list of links that point you to genealogical research sites online.
EllisIsland.org – website dedicated to finding your immigrant ancestors. This is the original free Ellis Island research site. Search your relatives by names – or even partial spelling.
Gutenberg Library – is a library of over 60,000 free ebooks that can be downloaded or read online. No fee or registration required. Many genealogical titles.
House of Names – Coat of Arms, name, and surname origins. There is a free version and more detailed information can be purchased for a fee.
Linkpendium.com – genealogy links to many sites
Names.org – The site offers first name origins, statistics and popularity rankings for people names. You can search and compare the most popular names, find trending names and review various list of names by origin, region decade and more.
National Archives – In particular select the “Research Our Records” tab, then select “Access to Archival Databases (AAD)
Newspapers online, by State – The Ancestor Hunt website has a page dedicated to Newspaper research, how-to’s and loads of links to digitized newspapers!
NGS Guidelines – Guidelines recommended by the National Genealogical Society for the benefit of those who wish to improve their skills and performance in genealogical pursuits.
Finding Your Family from Ship Passenger Lists – Very information site concerning locating family on passenger lists.
Maps
Newberry Atlas of Historical Boundaries – The Atlas presents in maps and text complete data about the creation and all subsequent changes in the size, shape, and location of every county in the fifty United States and the District of Columbia since 1620.
The National Map – As one of the cornerstones of the U.S. Geological Survey’s (USGS) National Geospatial Program, The National Map is a collaborative effort among the USGS and other Federal, State, and local partners to improve and deliver topographic information for the Nation. It has many uses ranging from recreation to scientific analysis to emergency response.
OldMapsOnline.org – developed out of a love of history and heritage of old maps. OldMapsOnline.org indexes over 400.000 maps. Draw a rectangle on a location and it brings up available maps.
David Rumsey Maps – The David Rumsey Map Collection was started over 30 years ago and contains more than 150,000 maps. The collection focuses on rare 16th through 21st century maps of North and South America, as well as maps of the World, Asia, Africa, Europe, and Oceania. Digitization of the collection began in 1996 and there are now over 95,000 items online, with new additions added regularly. The site is free and open to the public. Here viewers have access not only to high resolution images of maps that are extensively cataloged, but also to a variety of tools that allow to users to compare, analyze, and view items in new and experimental ways.
State of Texas Map Collection – several links to Texas maps provided by the State of Texas
Mapquest – view maps for anywhere in the U.S.
Texas Dept. of Transportation Maps – view Texas County Highway maps
Perry-Castañeda Library Map Collection- This collection is from the University of Texas at Austin and includes more than 250,000 maps.
Texas County Formation Maps– County formation and Census maps of Texas
Military
Confederate Veteran Magazine Index – This is an index to the personal names of over 11,000 Confederate soldiers as published in the Confederate Veteran magazine for the years 1893 to 1932. Each entry lists the volume and page number, and may include date and place of birth, date and place of death, and military unit. The magazine primarily contains articles relating to the activities of various local Confederate veterans’ organizations. It also includes biographical sketches, literary works, and obituaries.
Periodicals
Montana The Magazine of Western History (MT) – 1951 to 1961 online
The North Carolina Historical Review (NC) – 1924 to 1967 online
Cleveland County Genealogical Society (OK) – 2012 to 2014 and 2021 online
Ansearchin News (TN) – 1950’s to 2011 are free; 2012-present requires membership
Distant Crossroads (Hawkins County, TN) – 1984, 1985, 1986, 1987, 1990, 1996, 2001, 2002,2006, 2007, 2012, and 2013 online
Tennessee Genealogy & History (TN) – 2017 to 2022 online
The Southside Virginia (VA) – 1983 to 1997 online
Virginia Appalachian Notes (VA) – 1977 to 2014 online