Finding Your Kin Who Crossed the Ocean
Most every British researcher has a line or two with relatives who crossed the Atlantic for the United States. Dave McDonald can help locate them!
Unlike the centralised registration in the UK since 1837, the American states required civil registration of births and deaths at widely variant times, mostly in the late Nineteenth or early Twentieth Centuries. Marriages are recorded with local authorities, and beginning only in the Twentieth Century, at the state level. Each state is custodian of its own records, and has its own quirks of recording and making records available. With extensive experience and exposure to the many state and local offices, we can help locate your American kin!
With ready access to US census records through 1940; ships’ passenger lists of the Port of New York through the early 1890s; Canadian census records, 1851 and 1861; and the excellent facilities of the State Historical Society of Wisconsin, Old Northwest Research can often find family members and their descendants down through the years.
Background and Qualifications
David McDonald earned a B. A. in History and Government from Beloit College (Wisconsin), a Master of Divinity from Eden Seminary (Missouri) and a doctorate from Christian Seminary (Indiana). He is a Certified Genealogist(sm) under the auspices of the Board for Certification of Genealogists, Washington, D. C. Like all the Board’s associates, his certification is subject to renewal in April 2019, having been renewed in the spring of 2014. He is an honours graduate of the (American) National Genealogical Society’s Home Study Course and earned distinction in the Advanced Methodology track at Samford University’s Institute of Genealogical and Historical Research in 2003. He completed IGHR’s course “Writing and Editing for Genealogists,” in 2011.
Dave is a Trustee and past president of the Board for Certification of Genealogists. He has been a Director of the International Society for British Genealogy & Family History and is a former director of the the American National Genealogical Society.
He has engaged in active research on UK and Irish families from the US since 1985, and since 1995, he has engaged in direct research in British archives and repositories. At that same time, Dave began researching American kin for British clients. He belongs to, and as an overseas member very much appreciates the work of, a number of local Family History Societies.
Recent Comments