Tag: genealogy research

Databases Series: ChescoPIN

~ rmanuel191 ~ Leave a comment

Hello!  My name’s Rebecca.  For those who haven’t been following this series, I am the Information Literacy Librarian here at the Chester County Library.  (You might recognize me as the librarian with the purple hair!)  Welcome to this series here on our blog where every week (or thereabouts) I’ll be introducing you to one of the library’s databases.  A library database, for those who are unsure, is essentially just an online resource that the library pays for so that you can access it for free with your library card!

Today I’d like to tell you a little bit about ChescoPIN.  ChescoPIN is a portal that holds most of Chester County’s online public records databases or provides links to other county portals that hold the relevant records.  For records housed directly through this portal, it allows users to search these databases, organized by county department, by entering values in the appropriate fields of the forms provided on the website.  The county departments with records housed directly through ChescoPIN are the Prothonotary, the Assessment Department (real estate), and the Tax Claim Bureau.  For records housed in another county portal, it will link directly to the relevant portal, where you can then search that specific database.  The county departments with records housed in other county portals are the Recorder of Deeds and the Pennsylvania Judiciary (criminal records).

For those who have used ChescoPIN before or who are looking for the Register of Wills and Orphans’ Court/Marriage Licenses, please note that these will have been moved to a new portal by end of day today (Monday, March 31). ChescoPIN will continue to link to this new portal once the move has been finalized. The new portal can be found here.

Find ChescoPIN on our website by going to chescolibraries.org –> Tools and Research –> All CCLS Databases –> C –> ChescoPIN

This post is number sixteen in this databases series!  If you missed the previous installments, you can view them here.

Databases Series: Ancestry Library Edition

~ rmanuel191 ~ Leave a comment

Hello!  My name is Rebecca, and I am the Information Literacy Librarian here at the Chester County Library.  (You might recognize me as the librarian with the purple hair!)  Welcome to a new series here on our blog where every week (or thereabouts) I’ll be introducing you to one of the library’s databases.  A library database, for those who are unsure, is essentially just an online resource that the library pays for so that you can access it for free with your library card!

Welcome to the sixth installment in the series!  If you missed the previous ones, you can find them here.  Today, I will talk a little about Ancestry Library Edition.  Many if not most of you have likely heard of Ancestry before, but if not, Ancestry is one of the leading online resources for genealogical (family history) research.  Ancestry has 30 billion records from all over the world, from census and immigration data to historical newspapers, maps, photographs, and more.  Ancestry Library Edition gets you access to Ancestry’s wealth of information as long as you are on a library computer or connected to the library’s Wi-Fi network.

Pro tip:  While you cannot create an account on Ancestry Library Edition, and thus cannot save your research to the website, you can create a free family tree account on the regular Ancestry website, so you can download records from Ancestry Library Edition and then upload them into your family tree on the main site.

Find Ancestry Library Edition on our website by going to chescolibraries.org –> Tools and Research –> All CCLS Databases –> A –> Ancestry Library Edition

For more genealogy research, you can also check out HeritageQuest or MyHeritage Library Edition.  HeritageQuest is owned by the same company as Ancestry, so you might recognize the user interface; it carries fewer records than Ancestry, but it has the collection of Freedman’s Bank records, which is unique to this resource.  MyHeritage Library Edition is a genealogy resource provided for free to all Pennsylvania library card holders through the State Library of Pennsylvania; it has 20+ billion records and is available in 42 languages.  Find HeritageQuest by going to chescolibraries.org –> Tools and Research –> All CCLS Databases –> H –> HeritageQuest.  Find MyHeritage Library Edition by going to chescolibraries.org –> Tools and Research –> All CCLS Databases –> M –> MyHeritage Library Edition.

Start your genealogy research at home

~ Book Club Mom ~ Leave a comment

Image: Pixabay

You can research your family history from home with these helpful library resources:

Access Heritage Quest Online, free with your library card.

Click here or visit chescolibraries.org, select Tools and Research from the menu bar and click on All CCLS Databases to locate Heritage Quest Online. Sign in with your library card.

Family Tree Magazine on Flipster

View this current issue and past issues of Family Tree Magazine through 2015 online.

Click here or visit chescolibraries.org, select Downloads from the menu bar and scroll down to click on Flipster and sign in with your library card.

General OneFile (POWER Library)

Our GALE General OneFile through POWER Library has millions of articles available in PDF and HTML full-text, supplemented by reference, newspaper, and audio content. Find relevant articles and periodicals by entering “genealogy” in the Search bar.

Click here or visit chescolibraries.org, select Tools and Research from the menu bar and click on All CCLS Databases to locate General OneFile and sign in with your library card.

Genealogy searches from home – a great way to learn your family history!