Help From the Genealogy Guys

I’ve left voicemails and e-mailed comments in to podcasts before, but I still go all a-squee when I hear MY E-MAIL being read on the air, so to speak.

Last week, I e-mailed the Genealogy Guys about finding Great-Aunt Phoebe’s service station. (Actually, she’s my great-great-aunt, but who’s counting?) Today, I listened to George and Drew give me (and hundreds of other genealogy buffs) some clues about where to go next:

  1. City directories? Establish the year it was founded and the year it went out of business or changed hands.
  2. Land and property records; perhaps a mortgage?
  3. Florida Secretary of State: Bureau of Measurements’ annual inspections, incorporations.
  4. Florida State Archives for archived gov’t records?
  5. Local genealogical society or historical societies
  6. Sanborn fire insurance maps? Chipley might not be large enough of a city to appear in one of those.

So, that gives me a pretty good start. The city directories were something I’d thought of myself, but I hadn’t considered going to the Secretary of State. Good idea, George!

Other fun things: Drew actually pronounced “Schnuth” correctly, and George started out by giving a mini-plug of my podcast, as I’d decided to sign my e-mail with my podcast’s name, as well as my own. Any publicity I can get is fine with me. 🙂

I’m off to go search for some Washington County libraries online…