Hello GenTravelers!
Let me introduce you to this week’s GenTraveler, Nick Cimino…(and thank you Nick for the excellent travel tips!)
Nick Cimino has been doing genealogy for 30 years!
His area of specialization is advanced genealogy problem solving. He is also adept at finding records that are hidden beyond the indexes at Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.org. Other areas of specialization: African American ; Cartography (maps); Emigration & Immigration ; Historical Sites ; Lineage Societies ; Heir Searcher ; Naturalization ; Scots-Irish ; Irish American ; German American ; Italian American
How often do you go GenTraveling? A minimum of once per year but usually more frequently.
Do you have any tips on how to make GenTraveling a success? Finding the exact locations of residence, employment, church, social groups and burial places and mapping them before you go makes it easy to make a spiritual connection with your ancestors when you get there. Also make a list of historic sites and record repositories in the vicinity and map those too. Make a list of people that you want to contact including other descendants who still live in the area.
What types of repositories are your favorite to visit while GenTraveling? Libraries, courthouses, historical museums, and archives are my favorites. In Northern Ireland, my favorite was the Public Record Office of Northern Ireland in Belfast. In Canada my favorite was the Public Archives of Canada in Ottawa. Visiting the homes of distant cousins who stayed in the same location as the ancestors can be repositories unto themselves. Church records can be found in the churches themselves or in the homes of the church historian. Sometimes church records are in held at the diocese or at a denominational archive. For example, I visited Ohio Weslayan University for the Methodist archives of Southwest Ohio and found records of my great grandfather who was a United Brethren minister.
Tell us about your favorite GenTraveling excursion. My most memorable genealogical travel adventure was Northern Ireland in 2008. I wrote about it on my blog briefly here: http://www.ancestorpuzzles.com/2015/02/my-dilemma-with-lord-of-manor-uk-and.html
and in greater detail here: http://www.ancestorpuzzles.com/2017/03/chain-migration-from-ulster-case-study.html
The Fairbanks family is one of my most intriguing families which dates back to a colonial Massachussetts immigrant, Jonathan Fairbanks of Dedham, Massachusetts. AKA Jonathan Fairebanke 1594–1668
BIRTH 1594 • West Riding, Yorkshire, England
DEATH 5 DECEMBER 1668 • Dedham, Norfolk, Massachusetts
My 10th great-grandfather
My visits to two Fairbanks family houses on the East and West coasts are also favorites and I write about them here:
http://www.ancestorpuzzles.com/2015/12/rich-and-not-so-famous-kin-fairbanks.html
Are any of you related to the Fairbanks as well? Be social and check out Nick on these platforms:
https://www.apgen.org/directory/search_detail.html?mbr_id=5336
Blog: http://www.ancestorpuzzles.com
Twitter: @ancestorpuzzles
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AncestorPuzzles/