New Collection of Claims by Early American Citizens

The following announcement was written by Archive CD Books USA:

Columbia, Maryland – 23 July 2007 -- Archive CD Books USA announces the availability of a major new resource for those who are researching their early-American family histories.  The “Digested Summary and Alphabetical List of Private Claims Which Have Been Presented to the House of Representatives” represents nearly one hundred years of claims by citizens of the United States to their government for reimbursement for property or expenses.

Referencing approximately 100,000 names, this unique collection spans the period 1789-1882 and includes petitions for a wide variety of personal reimbursements, most notably in relation to the acts of the government during the Revolutionary War, War of 1812, Mexican-American War, the Civil War, and various Indian engagements.  Barbara Vines Little, Genealogical Consultant for Archive CD Books USA, noted that the collection contains claims for “restitution for property lost, damaged or destroyed due to government actions (or inaction); bounty land; land titles; patent extensions; payment for services rendered; and a myriad of other personal items that its citizens wanted the government to fix.”

“No claim was too large or too small,” said Ms Little.  “One woman applied for relief for loss of husband in public service. Jonathan Painter, a black man wanted payment for services as a spy in 1812, and J.R. O’Bierne wanted part of the reward for capturing John Wilkes Booth.”  Many of these claims never became law but, as Ms. Little explained, “they generated paper­ that provides details about our ancestors.   Locating your ancestor in one of these volumes will start you on a whole new adventure in your search for your ancestors.”

“There is no other known searchable source for this complete set of five volumes, including high-quality images of the original pages,” said Bob Velke, President of Archive CD Books USA.  It is, therefore, a vast untapped resource for researchers of 18th and 19th century.  “Best of all,” said Mr. Velke, "you can search all five volumes at once using advanced search capabilities which include single words or phrases, proximity searches, and Boolean (and/or) searches.”

For a limited time, this major new collection is available for the introductory price of just $19.97 which is 50% off the regular retail price of $39.95.  For more information about “Digested Summary and Alphabetical List of Private Claims,” please visit: http://www.ArchiveCDBooksUSA.com/privateclaims.htm

About the company: Archive CD Books USA was founded in 2005 in order to make digital reproductions of old books available to family historians, to donate original publications to libraries and other institutions, and to cooperate with these repositories to preserve their existing collections for future generations.  It is a member of the international Archive CD Books Project whose other affiliated companies digitize books from Great Britain, Ireland, Canada, and Australia.

Comments

[Carly Henderson]

This sounds like an interesting and possibly useful CD. However, I have spent hundreds of dollars on books and CD's that "might" or "should" have my family
listed only to find that there is nothing. Having been burned too many times I have sworn off further purchases until publishers start offering indexes on-line. I have a feeling that I'm not alone in this wasted money syndrome. Does anyone know of a genealogical publisher who offers this service?

[Happy Dae]

To Carly Henderson,

I don't know of any, but Google Books might be of some help.

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com/ssg1.htm

[Barbara DeHart]

Try here for online indexes to books and CDs.

"VIEW INSIDE THIS BOOK" & GOOGLE Book Search Features Added to genealogical.com

A little over a year ago, we launched a new website that included a surname/full name search on more than 800 books and 75 Family Archive CDs. Since those volumes and CDs represent only about 40% of our collection, we offered site visitors the ability to search our entire collection of products by author, title, keyword, ISBN, or item number because one or more of the remaining 1,200 volumes in our catalogue may well contain valuable information on their ancestors.

Very recently we have added two enhancements to make it even easier for our patrons to determine if the name they are seeking can be found in more of our publications. The first enhancement was the addition of the "View Inside this Book" feature to specific product pages. This feature allows you to view PDF images of the table of contents, sample pages, and the index to a number of our books. When available, "View Inside This Book" can be found below the picture of the book on its product page. We have added this feature to a number of our more recent releases, including the three volumes of ADVENTURERS OF PURSE & PERSON VIRGINIA, 1607-1624/5, by John Frederick Dorman, and VIRGINIA IMMIGRANTS AND ADVENTURERS, 1607-1635: A Biographical Dictionary, by Martha W. McCartney. By the way, you must have the Adobe Reader on your computer to activate the "View Inside This Book" feature. If you don't have the Adobe Reader, you can download it at www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html

The second new feature on our site reflects our decision to participate in Books.Google.com. As you may have heard, Google.com created this site in order to allow readers to search the contents and view selected pages of books published from all over the world. The publishers who participate in the program hope/believe that more people will buy their products if patrons have a better idea of what the products contain.

At this writing, about 350 of our books not yet incorporated into the name index search at genealogical.com are up and running at Books.Google.com. Among the 350, you will find the vast majority of our how-to books and textbooks. Books like Val Greenwood's "Researcher's Guide to American Genealogy" and Angus Baxter's "In Search of Your European Roots." Another 100 books are slated to be added to Books.Google.com within the next few months.

Books.Google.com allows you to search every word in these publications as well as view selected pages from these books (usually the Introduction, Table of Contents, Index, and a handful of pages randomly selected from the text of the title). Since publishers are participating in Books.Google.com in order to sell more books, they allow Google to post only a limited number of pages.

You can tell which of our books are in the program in one of two ways. On our website, any of our product pages that have the familiar Google Search box below the book's picture is in Books.Google.com and can be searched from that very product page. You can also go directly to Books.Google.com and search on the author, title, or ISBN of your choosing. If the book has been entered into the program, you will see its image in the search results. Just click on the image, and you are on your way.

So, to summarize all the search features on our website, you can continue to search our entire collection by author, title, keyword, ISBN, or item number. You can perform a name search at genealogical.com on about 800 of our books and 75 CDs. You can access "View Inside This Book" on a growing number of titles on our site. And, by accessing Books.Google.com, you can do an every-word search and view selected pages on another 350 titles not yet incorporated into our own name search. We hope this array of search features will further assist you in finding those elusive ancestors.

[Alvie L. Davidson CG]

I am interested in the Private Claims CD but I have the index in three large bound books. Is this simply a digitized copy of my books? Is the stuff on the CD the actual documents in those private claims from Congress?

[Patty Wooldridge]

I agree with Carly. I have spent thousands of dollars on subscriptions, books and CDs which are virtually worthless for my research. Even when they do provide an index it does not guarantee that there is any substantive information in the material. It might just be that your ancestor's name appeared on a list. Probably information you already had. Fortunately, I have been able to donate most of the books to the local LDS Family History Center.

[Happy Dae]

To Alvie L. Davidson, CG:

If I understand Bob Velke's statement, "complete set of five volumes, including high-quality images of the original pages," then images of the actual documents are on the CDs.

I will vouch for Bob Velke: he often delivers more than he promises.

Happy Dae.
http://www.ShoeStringGenealogy.com/ssg1.htm

[Betty Lawson]

Carly,I guess we have all spent a few wasted dollars on books and CDs.

Genealogical Publishing Company is currently in the process of indexing all of their books. They have a search engine that will bring up all the books in their warehouses that the person (or location, etc.) is listed in. I've tried it and it's great. If the book is currently out of print, you can notify them and if you are lucky, they will notify you when it's available. Got a couple of rare books that way. Here is their URL:

http://www.genealogical.com/

[Bob Velke, Archive CD Books USA]

(The following comments were posted yesterday but Dick has had some problems with the site so I'm reposting.)

Alvie, the CD contains the Digested Summary, not the contents of RG233 (see the full product description at the link above). I think you'll find that you have the first three volumes of this set, ending with the 31st Congress and published in 1853 which, of course, doesn't include the Civil War. The CD contains those plus two more volumes, ending with the 46th Congress and published in 1882. In addition to the benefit of doing fuzzy searches across all five volumes at one time, the CD is searchable on the entire page, not just the first column of names.

[Scareness, Long Beach, Mississippi]

The half-off discount makes this gold-mine-potential-source for finding ancestors or collateral lines a steal. For this passionate researcher it is always exciting to find a new and chocked-full-of-names source, easily accessible for under $20.

[Carolyn H Pappas]

The Library of Congress has by state a complete collection of "Law Reviews" pertaining to anything Federal. This collection is by year. I checked Volume 1 of Missouri(before it was a state) for a particular surname. I found that Philip Boulware was granted a "Liquor" license. One would probably need to hire a professional genealogist to search.