Fresh Looks for Some of Our Counties
It’s been a busy summer here in the NCGenWeb. Some of our counties have new designs and we invite you to check them out!
The counties that have been updated include Mecklenburg, McDowell, & Randolph.
Mecklenburg County NCGenWeb
McDowell County NCGenWeb
Randolph County NCGenWeb
You can keep up with site updates for McDowell and Mecklenburg by subscribing to their RSS feeds (here and here respectively). Be sure to visit the sites to check out the recent changes.
Johnston County New Website
The NCGenWeb Project is pleased to inform interested researchers of the new Johnston County site. Michael Kay, whose family roots extend to the area, recently adopted the county and has designed a new site for you all to enjoy.
Johnston County NCGenWeb site
Some of the features you’ll find on the site include:
- an RSS feed so you can keep up with updates via your favorite feed reader
- a well-organized sidebar to help you locate records of interest
- interactive census records with comments and transcription variations (particularly the 1800 census)
Michael uses a back-end database system for the site that offers him an advantage of adding new resources quickly. Check it out!
New Hanover Site Redesign
Yours truly is a librarian and loves when I see library-related fare. Therefore, I was just tickled pink when I saw what New Hanover County Coordinator Natasha did for the graphics for the site when she took over the county a few months ago. In her new site design, she’s replicated the look of a library catalog – isn’t that neat?
Natasha also has experience working in a library and it’s apparent that her experience translates well to her counties. The New Hanover site is well-organized into clearly identifiable sections that should be of great help to county researchers.
Once you get past the first page, Natasha has a nice antique feel to the pages to help put you in the mood of your family history research. Along with pertinent information, each sub-page also has a “Related” section as well.
I happened to be visiting the New Hanover county site when I saw design as I was about to prepare a submission to the site – the index to a book of will abstracts of the county. The index comes from a book compiled in 1981 by Mae Blake Graves. If you find a will that you’re interested in seeing the abstract for, contact a library that holds the book and ask them about their procedures for requesting a photocopy of the page(s) of interest. For future reference, you will find this linked at the bottom of the Wills page on the county site.
Bladen County Redesign
Have you checked out the website for Bladen County recently?? County coordinator Jason has redesigned the front pages of the site. The “theme” of the site is called Parchment and I find it perfectly suited for a genealogy site, don’t you?
The Bladen site has a lot of great information on it so if you have family connections there, you will want to be sure to look around. I have a family connection to Bladen myself; one of my great-grandmothers was born in Abbottsburg.
NCGenWeb on Your Smartphone
The number of people worldwide investing in smartphones these days continues to rapidly increase. While I have not done extensive research, from some quick online reading I’ve done, it seems the penetration in the US is at about 15 -20% (or about 12-15 million people)! Yours truly in fact, just obtained my first smartphone this month, a Motorola Droid.
In light of this, as I’ve been playing around with my phone, I started to become curious – could I make the NCGenWeb site mobile phone compatible for the genealogists out there who may access us on their phones? Indeed, it turned out to be a very simple task!
Since this site is developed in WordPress, and WordPress has a large user community that provides plug-ins for all types of functionality, I quickly located the WPTouch plugin. Within 5 minutes of finding it, I’d made the NCGenWeb site compatible for iphone and Android users.
If you have a smartphone, access the NCGenWeb page from it and you will find it redesigned to meet the dimensions of your phone. The plug-in allowed me to set several options and on the smartphone display you can see the blog posts, subscribe to the RSS feed, email the site to someone and more. It is so cool!
If you would be willing – here is a 5 question survey to take; I’m curious to know about people’s use of smartphones for accessing genealogy information.
If you’d like to learn more, you can view this 2 minute video clip I made:
Redesigned Nash County
Earl Bell, the new coordinator for Nash County, joined the NCGenWeb project. Earl is a retired history teacher and has deep roots in Nash County. Both of Earl’s parents are from Nash county and his maternal grandfather owned three stores in the area. His paternal grandparents were among the founders of the Oak Level Baptist Church,. No doubt, Earl will have lots to contribute to the site!
At the end of October, a redesigned version of the site was launched and since that time, Earl has been quite busy adding original content. Highlight of some of the information he’s added include:
- illegitimate children mentioned in county court records from 1787-1835
- African-American surnames in the 1870 census of Liberty township
- Civil War Troops in the 47th Infantry, Company A
The new site can be viewed at http://www.ncgenweb.us/nash – check it out!
Fresh Look for Henderson County
Henderson County Site Coordinator, Kathy, has updated the site with a fresh look. Waiting for your greeting when you land on the page is a lovely, scenic view of the mountains. Visit the site and as always, if you have ancestors from the area, please consider contributing data.
Durham County Redesigned
Ginger Smith, your lovely site coordinator for the Durham County site, joined the NCGenWeb project in August. Over the past couple of months, in addition to juggling family & school, Ginger has been working to provide county researchers with a refreshed site. While the pages are still under construction, please visit Durham County and especially consider donating information if you have ancestors or relatives from the area.
http://www.ncgenweb.us/durham
Please update any bookmarks as the URLs have changed.
Dizzy Gillepsie & Scotland County
What does this famous jazz musician have to do with North Carolina?
Dizzy Gillespie. October 1948. Digital image. Life @ Google Images. Google. Web. <http://is.gd/3Rcs4>
Even though I was raised in North Carolina, there is so much history in this state that I know I will never learn it all. I do love learning various trivia about the state and its residents from time to time. Just 5 minutes ago, I learned that Dizzy Gillepsie attended the Laurinburg Music Institute in Laurinburg back in 1932. (Visit their official website).
These are the kind of things you learn when you visit our NCGenWeb sites. I happened to look this up because Richard Phillips, our recently designated Scotland County Site Coordinator announced the redesign of the website today. Visit the site now. Even if your ancestors are not from Scotland County. You won’t regret it. :-)
Jones County Redesign
Do you do research in Jones County, NC? If so, then you may wish to revisit the county pages as the site has recently been redesigned. As part of the redesign process, many pages have new URLs, so please check your bookmarks.
The site now also features a blog so you can stay on top of changes/additions to the website.
