100 Social History Websites

How can you incorporate social history into genealogy? Start thinking about how to better describe the time, events and activities your ancestor was a part of. This list of social history websites will provide you with a start to telling the story of your ancestor's life.

A Pictorial History of Kentucky Coal Mining

France in the Age of Les Miserables

Old Magazines

Sears Archive

What 19^th Century Kids Read

Picture This: California Perspectives on American History

Agriculture and Farm Machinery

Digital Archive of American Architecture

Car History

GenDisasters

Recipe Curio

What did you do in the war Grandma?

The Victorian Era Online

How to Make Moonshine

American Century Project

National Museum of Civil War Medicine

America’s Quilting History

Working in the Lowell Mills

Victorian Calling Cards

Fashion Era

David Rumsey Map Collection

Medieval Technology and American History

National Museum of Funeral History

Past and Present Railroad Job Descriptions

Index of UKPortrait and Studio Photographers 1840-1950

History of Tinker Toys

History of Girl Scout Cookies

History of Furniture

Hairstyle History

Menu Collection

PhotoTree.com

Old Catalogs

Sewer History

Brownie Camera History

Vintage Stuff

19^th Century Sunday School Books

19th Century Inventions and Patents of African-Americans

19^th Century Schoolbooks

18^th and 19^th Century Nicknames

18^th Century History

Immigration Map

How to Build a Log Cabin

History of Mortgages

Salem Witch Trails

Retronaut

Click Americana

History of American Education

Women’s History Online  Exhibits

Civil War Surgery

The 1950’s

Tax History Museum

Historic Medical Terms

American Migration Routes

Victorian Entertainment

Common Place

Online Guide to Traditional Games

Reading Old Handwriting

19^th Century Love and Marriage

A Garbage Timeline

Social History of Children’s Literature

Folk Music

Pioneer Women of the West

Colonial Firefighting

Early America

Ephemera Society of America

Western New York Railroad Archive

Internet Modern History Sourcebook

Godey’s Lady’s Book

Vintage Ads

Telephone Museum

Plagues and Epidemics

Old West History

Antique Homes

Sewing Machine History

Witches, Midwives, and Nurses

Fraternal Insurance Organizations

Story of Farming

American Labor Unions Research Guide

Shorpy Photo Archive

Groundfishing Industry in New England

Pearl Button History

The History of Greeting Cards

Gretna Green

American Grocery Store History

Maps of World War II Battles

Dating 19^th Century Mounted Card Portraits

Paris:  Urban Sanitation before the 20thCentury

History of Shoes

Performing Arts Encyclopedia

American Life Histories

A History of Wigs

The Avalon Project: Documents in Law, History and Diplomacy

America in the 1930s

What Was That Website?: The Links Page

From freedigitalphotos.net

While giving a presentation last week someone remarked that it would have been nice if I had listed all the websites that I referred to on the handout. That's a fair comment, but here's my dilemma. Oftentimes, speakers are asked to turn in handouts weeks and even months before a presentation. I know that at least for me, I am constantly adding to  presentations, sometimes up to the last minute. And in that tweaking I find new resources that I want to share. So then there's the decision, do I share only what's on the handout or do I provide all the tools that I think are useful to an audience? Because I want to leave participants with tools they can use,  I present what I have just discovered. My belief is that the handout is to augment the presentation. For me it's not a transcript of everything I will be presenting.

Also, because I think it's easier to click on a link rather than retype a website address I decided to go ahead and create a Links page on my blog. Does this page include every website I will ever mention in a presentation? No. But it does have the ones that I speak about in the majority of my presentations. I will be adding new links as I find them so this is not a "static" resource.

The Links page is here. It also can be found by clicking on the Links tab at the top of this blog.

Websites for Finding Vital Records and their Alternatives

Last week I spoke to a DAR group and we discussed the topic of vital record alternatives. Through that talk I discussed some websites that I find useful and thought I would share them here. I also based the handout on two articles I wrote for the WorldVitalRecords newsletter. You can find those two articles, 40 Places to Find Vital Records Information, here and here.

Libraries in the United States

WorldCat

Repositories of Primary Sources

Online Archives of California

Online Death Indexes

Online Birth & Marriage Records Indexes

NUCMC

Ancestry Wiki

VitalRec