Tracing relatives

About 1920 ish my granfather came over to England from Ireland and his brothers went to Washington DC.

Is there anywhere in DC I could go to try and trace my relatives when I visit

Tracing relatives

A truly unique question on this board--bully to you!

You might start here:

http://www.historydc.org/

Tracing relatives

It is probably as easy as going to the

D.C. Public Library.

Local libraries usually have census records as well as a local history room.

If you strike out there, you can check the National Archives.

Some of these things may be available online and you won%26#39;t even need to go to the building.

Census records will give you where they lived.

Library of Congress, has genealogy materials but mind you it is MASSIVE, and you won%26#39;t get anywhere if you don%26#39;t know what you are looking for. Their catalog is available online.

The DAR (Daughters of American Revolution) is also a good resource.

Try to find out as much as possible about where they lived and what church (if applicable) they were involved with. Churches were often the source/keepers of birth/marriage/death records. The Mormons keep extensive genealogy records. We have had some luck using their churches to do research.

Library of Congress has a genealogy reading room

http://www.loc.gov/rr/genealogy/

There are many many websites that offer advice.

Thanks guys, I will see what info I can find out from my Dad now I have some ideas where to start

Don%26#39;t know when you%26#39;ll be here, but I%26#39;ll ask my husband for info. from the Fairfax, Virginia Genealogical Society.

The city%26#39;s public library, downtown, has a large room called the ';Washingtoniana Room'; devoted to the city%26#39;s history. They have a collection of very OLD TELEPHONE DIRECTORIES, property ownership records, and archives of early Washington newspapers on microfilm, as well as articles indexed by subject matter - one bound volume for each year of the newspaper. This is at the ';Martin Luther King Memorial Library'; at 9th and G Streets, N.W. in Washington D.C.

See http://www.dclibrary.org for the service hours and phone number.

To avoid the expense of your coming to Washington in person, you could instead pay a small fee for a researcher from the Columbia Historical Society to quickly research this for you. Call (ring) the Washingtoniana Room librarian, and also call the Columbia Historical Society (google their name to find their phone number) and ask for their help.

I notice that the former Columbia Historical Society has changed their name. Their current website is:

http://www.historydc.org

Most likely the port of entry was New York--so the very first place you want to look before you start your trip is online at the Ellis Island website, http://www.ellisislandrecords.org

When you locate them, you should be able to see a copy of the actual ship%26#39;s manifest on which they sailed. It should also give you the address of their sponsor, i.e. where they were heading after arriving in New York.

Unfortunately, I%26#39;m not sure how you%26#39;ll go about tracing their descendents, especially if the family name is fairly common.