How This Site Works

I hope this site is defined well enough that you can find information easily. But, to help refine your search, I wanted to include the information below. I hope it will answer your questions about the documents, photographs and transcriptions included on this site.

If you have difficulty using this site, simply use the search box at top right. Type in a full name or surname to find posts listed under that name. Most of the blog entries on this site will be organized by the categories listed below as well as by surname to make it easier for you to find information about your family.

FAMILY

Under this category you’ll discover deaths, obituaries, marriages, births and other life events that affected families and, sometimes, the entire community. No information in this category will be included within fifty years from the current date. For instance, if today’s date is 1 January 2010, then you won’t find information about anyone in this category from 1 January 1960 to 1 January 2010.

The reason behind this limitation is to protect the privacy of individuals who still may be living. One exception to this rule is information about family members within a family unit that had no known descendants. Surnames will serve as the keywords for any entry in this category.

Current obituaries can be found in many local newspapers, and these newspapers also carry those obituaries online for limited time periods. We offer a list of those resources for your convenience on the bottom right of every page.

CEMETERIES

Information in this category includes photographs of gravestones or information about burial sites gathered from secondary sources such as books or letters. Out of respect to family members, memorial images or information for individuals who have died within the past decade of the current date will not be included. Images are categorized by cemetery, and surnames serve as keywords for this category.

MIGRATION

This category includes information about land or home ownership, sales of the same and moves that a family or group made over time. The majority of the posted information about migration, like the Family information noted above, is seventy years from the date of publication on this site. Once again, the reason for this timing is privacy for those individuals who still may be living.

MILITARY

This category covers individuals who served in various wars, including entire battalions. The focus will be on eighteenth- and nineteenth-century wars such as the American Revolution and the Civil War.

NEWS

The information in this category is focused on current news about genealogy, genealogical events and tools that might help you with your research. If you have the power to send a press release about your group, organization or event, feel free to sent it to “publisher @ appomattoxnews.com” (remove quotes and spaces).

RESOURCES

I hope the following information will answer any questions about resources used for this site:

• When a book is used for information posted on this site, that book will be linked to the corresponding page on Amazon.com. While many books may be available at Amazon, don’t be surprised to find that many books have been discontinued. Visit your local library to find the book, or ask for an inter-library loan if your library does not own the book.
• I gathered some information on this site from local courthouses in my travels. In this case, you need to consider that information as a secondary source, since Michelle Reeves and I transcribed the information from the original source at the courthouses. You may, in some cases where you question the information, either visit the courthouse yourself or ask or hire someone to look up the information for you, copy it and send it to you. In all cases, I will include the information for the repository where I obtained the data.
• In some cases, information is gathered from online sources. While there is an argument about whether online scans of documents are considered primary or secondary sources, in most cases, I try to use the scan of the actual document for transcription if a transcription is not available, and I will point you to that resource for your curiosity.
• Finally, I do not use sources from paid accounts such as Ancestry.com or NewspaperArchive.com unless absolutely necessary. But, resources such as actual death records and military records can prove invaluable in connecting family members. In some cases, when you want to gain access to those resources without paying full price, you can find a one-time usage fee (such is the case with some online obituary resources), a weekly or monthly fee, or a free trial period. At no time do I advocate using any of these sites unless you can afford the fees from your discretionary income.  Many times, the same records can be found in a visit to a local library and through inter-library loan (such as with a microfilm).

RIGHTS

All photographs and images contained on this site are personal property; therefore, they are not available for you to download and use, even for personal use unless it is noted on the page that the image is public property. In most cases, the image is so small that the only way to view it is online anyway. At some point, this copyright issue on images may change, but – in the meantime – know that I will discourage re-use of any image on this site on another site or for any other purpose.

However, any copy on this site is free for you to use, as it was obtained freely and you can obtain copies of originals just as easily as I did. I would appreciate, however, if you pointed others to this site with the use of that information.

RESEARCH

Although I have a degree in history, I am not a certified or licensed genealogist. And, my travel is limited at the moment; therefore, my ability to conduct further research is unlikely for now. With that said, feel free to ask questions and I will be happy to try to help. If you are seeking a certain marriage record for someone, for instance, I may already have that information. Or, I may know where you can find it.

On the other hand, you may have information that you can contribute to this site. In that case, if you want to contribute a photograph, a copy of a document or a transcription, please consider the fact that I won’t want to remove that material from this site once published. But, I will give you credit for that information and link to your site if you have one. If you are, or plan to become, a licensed or certified genealogist, this contribution may help your cause.

If you have any questions, feel free to email Linda at “publisher @ appomattoxnews.com” (remove quotes and spaces).