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Shaking Your Family Tree

December 10, 1998
	FINDING VITAL RECORDS THE EASY WAY by Myra Vanderpool Gormley, C.G.
If you like bargains, you're going to love this one -- if you are searching for your ancestors in the United States or Canada, and if you have a PC computer with a CD drive. The Vital Records Index -- North America, on several compact discs, contains information taken from birth, christening and marriage records from selected states and provinces. Dates cover a time period of ca. 1620 to 1888. The CDs, produced by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, contain nearly five million names. They were compiled from various church and civil records as well as some other records collections. There are seven CDs in this collection, six of them of marriages and one pertaining to birth and christening records. Keep in mind that this is not an index to all the vital records in the United States and Canada, nor does it cover all counties and provinces. Quebec, for example, is not represented at all in the collection. California, Florida, Hawaii, New Hampshire, and South Carolina have only a few or no counties included for either births or marriages. Nevertheless, this is an important new finding aid and the price is right: The entire set costs only $19, plus a small shipping and mailing charge. These CDs, which support the Windows Clipboard so you can copy and paste data, provide the source of where the information was obtained, including the Family History Library's (FHL) film numbers. The source information included is valuable for locating an original or secondary record. Moreover, the CDs contain information about the county, state or province in which the record can be found, the dates covered on a particular FHL film, and in some instances useful notes that were recorded by the original scribe. For example, a search for Vanderpool marriages produced 152 "hits'', which I could have narrowed by time period and/or locality had I chosen. The search information includes the surname of interest, marriage date (year), state of record and name of the spouse, plus the Family History Library film number where the marriage information was found. Utilizing the information from these CDs, you can order films through a nearby Family History Center and/or write to the proper official to obtain a copy of the birth/christening or marriage record. Included with the set is the viewer software. It takes about five minutes to install. Order (Item 50029, North American Vital Records Index) from: Church Distribution Center, 1999 West 1700 South, Salt Lake City, UT 84104-4233. You can order by phone (credit cards accepted) by calling (800) 537-5971 in the United States and Canada. Callers outside North America can call (801) 240-1126. Computer system requirements are: Pentium processor, Windows 95 or NT 4.0+, 8 MB RAM (minimum), CD-ROM drive, VGA monitor with 256-color-capable video card and 25 MB hard-disk space. (Gormley is the author of Prima's Official Companion to Family Tree Maker available at book stores nationwide and on the Web at: http://www.primapublishing.com and http://www.amazon.com) (c) 1998, Los Angeles Times Syndicate Myra Vanderpool Gormley and Julie Case are co-editors of Missing Links, a free weekly genealogy e-zine. To subscribe, send your request to: Missing Links Newsletter Return to Myra Vanderpool Gormley Main Page Return to Columns Main Page
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