The closest I get to Delaware are towns and counties of the same name. Not one event in my database took place in the state of Delaware. That being the case, I decided to head over to my Diigo bookmark page for Delaware to see what online resource I could explore. Until today, there were only two links: one for the Delaware archives and one for the University of Delaware’s digital collection. I decided to explore the UD digital collections.
In some cases you are not able to access any of the images without a logon if you chose the “Full Collection” option.
Sometimes you can view thumbnails and details about an image, by choosing the “Open Access” option. I couldn’t find a way to look at a larger version of the image or download a copy, so for some collections, like the 1868 atlas, it was kind of a letdown.
Other times, a collection was available as PDF files. For example, the American Civil War Digital Collections: Pierce Family Papers has 48 documents in the collection that are digitized and available as PDF files.
When you choose “Browse the Collection” you will see a list of all the artifacts that are in the collection. Please note that there may be several pages of results so be sure to look for the “Next Page” link at the bottom of the page.
When you click on the link for an item of interest, you come to a page that has some more details, as well as a link to view the PDF file.
Clicking on the PDF file link will open the file. Below is a partial shot of a two-page letter.
I also explored the library’s main website and found that they had some research guides. Their Genealogy guide has some useful information about conducting genealogy research not only at the UD library, but for the state of Delaware in general. Links and references outside of the UD library are also mentioned throughout the guide. It is especially important to check out the tabs near the top of the page for subtopics.
And even though I clearly do not research in the state of Delaware at present, I thought it would be a good idea to beef up my Diigo links for Delaware just in case I should ever need them. In Jim’s post for Delaware, he mentions a few links that I do not have and I also consulted Red Book (Ancestry Publishing: 2004) for some ideas. Sadly, I didn’t have the genealogical nor historical societies, which is pretty bad considering I tried to get those for each state. But now they’re there, along with some other helpful links.
Genealogy By the States is a theme created by Jim Sanders over at the Hidden Genealogy Nuggets blog.
Looks like a great Delaware resource.
Regards, Jim