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If you are planning on conducting any research in the Washington D.C. area, this is one guide you'll need.The Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington has published the newly updated and expanded fourth edition of "Capital Collections: Resources for Jewish Genealogical Research in the Washington, DC Area". Resources, phone numbers, Web sites and security information have been updated. New sites have been added, along with a public transportation section and a DC Metro map. HINT: Do not bring any sort of drink down to the Metro platforms; you risk a fine. On my last trip, a friendly passerby advised me to ditch the iced tea before taking the escalator. At the bottom was an official waiting for unsuspecting travelers. I don't know if this tip, common knowledge for residents, is in the book, but it would help visitors.The 103-page guide includes the following sections and resources: Getting around the DC Metro Area; National Archives and Records Administration; NARA Archives II at College Park, Maryland; The Library of Congress; The US Holocaust Memorial Museum; National Museum of American Jewish Military History; Daughters of the American Revolution (DAR) Library; Family History Centers; National Library of Medicine; House of the Temple Library and Museum; Washington, DC (includes DC city archives & courts); Maryland (inclding special sections on Baltimore and Anapolis); Virginia (including Northern VA and Richmond); Synagogues in the Washington area; Cemeteries in the Washington area and the Synagogues & Burial Societies using them; Cemeteries in the Baltimore area and the Synagogues & Burial Societies using them.This book is a must for individual genealogists and genealogy society libraries. Single copies are $18 + $5 S&H, though Jewish genealogical libraries may purchase them for $12. To order, send checks to the Jewish Genealogy Society of Greater Washington, Inc., P.O. Box 31122, Bethesda MD 20824, Att: Capital CollectionsLabels: Books, Washington DC

At Grave Mappers, we are genealogists, researchers, historians, hobbyists, and cemetery lovers who have something in common—we want to preserve the priceless records found in cemeteries. Each of us has done this in our own unique way—walking through small deserted cemeteries and transcribing the headstone information; photographing headstones and sharing them on the internet; indexing and publishing burial listings from the cemeteries we visit.

Baylor University has announced that a small archive of Civil War letters has been digitized and is now available at the Baylor University Library Digital Collections site. The collection consists of thirty-two letters, mostly between a soldier and his sweetheart. The letters have been both digitized and transcribed; from the front page of the collection you can browse the letters in chronological order. The next-to-last item is the burial receipt for John Coleman, who wrote most of the letters (he died in 1880) and the last item — a really nice touch — is a chronological transcription of all the letters, presented in a PDF file. Click on a letter and you’ll get a good-sized picture; a lot of them are tough to read however (especially the ones written on blue paper.) On the left nav you’ll have the option to view the document description (the letter itself), the page description, or the page and text. Choose the page and text option; you’ll get a good copy of the letter to browse but also a transcription in a popup window. The transcriptions aren’t perfect, but they’re very good. John Coleman is an interesting man. Melancholy, frustrated, worried about his girlfriend and family, occasionally bored, he mixes home and war news equally. His girlfriend writes back patiently, their letters often missing each other. The good transcriptions and the focus on two people make this a fascinating read. Well done Baylor.

This site enables you to check whether or not there are any memorial inscriptions which are relevant to your researches. If there are none, then you pay nothing. If you find what you want, then you can download, and print out if you wish, not only the inscriptions themselves, but also a brief description of the memorial, a photograph of the church or chapel, a plan of the burial ground, and usually some historical information as well. For this, you pay a fee of between £4 and £7, depending on how much information you choose to retrieve from what is available.