On This Page:
- The Latest Useful Websites We've Found
- New find via the RootsWeb Bracken County Message Board ! Kentucky Baptist History website. Site includes transcribed portions of a rare book with an early account of Baptist pioneer families from Virginia known as The Traveling Church
- Charles Wesley Smith invites you to visit his Smith-Taylor and Allied Families Association (STAFA) website where you'll find references to many Bracken County surnames and family connections including Smith, West, Clos, Clark, Ruf, Faul, Haley, McClanahan, Hargett, Jett, Peed, and more.
- Three Important Bracken County-Specific Links to Keep Handy
- KyGenWeb County Resources
- About Bracken County and related RootsWeb Resources
- USGenWeb Special Projects
- The Pennsylvania Connection for early ancestral originals
- Other Useful Web Links Recommended by KYGenWeb County Managers and Website Visitors
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In keeping with the policy of providing free genealogical information on the Internet, data presented on this website may be used freely for personal research. While copyright may not be claimed on public records, copyright does apply to the compilation and formatting of the materials for presentation. These electronic pages may not be reproduced or distributed in any format. The contributor of materials from private and unpublished sources retains copyright on their submissions. Persons or entities wishing to use such materials for profit or presentation must obtain the written consent of the contributor. When using data found on this website, this copyright notice and an appropriate citation of source should appear with the information.
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- Purchase historic Kentucky newspapers on microfilm, explore on-line databases, or research in person at the University of Kentucky Libraries
- A list of contributors to the Linkpendium 1884 Bracken Atlas; see it on the Hicks Family website.
- Kentucky Marriages at RootsWeb: 1973 - 2000 Marriages, searchable by county of residence, county of license, surname, etc.
- Migrations through Bracken County - quite a few surnames
- Phillip Buckner Chapter DAR, an important resource for researching colonial era ancestors
- An index of names of World War I and II Veterans buried in overseas cemeteries under control of the American Battle Monuments Commission. Includes photos, descriptions of the cemeteries, and how to write for additional information.
- Learn how to read 18th Century British-American handwriting at DoHistory. Or go to the DoHistory Home Page and explore other useful information on this interesting website.
- Did your Kentucky ancestors heed the advice of Horace Greeley? The Washington State Digital Archives, is now online.
- Or maybe they were attracted to the dry climate of Arizona. If your Kentucky ancestor died in Arizona between 1878 and 1953 or bore children in Arizona between 1887 and 1928, you may find the image of the actual death or birth certificate on-line. It's free of charge on the Arizona Department of Health Services website
- Lots of name references in Harrison County Courier have been transcribed and are available on-line at the Harrison County KyGenWeb.
- The National Park Service Civil War Soldiers and Sailors System web site, Civil War Name Index Project of 6.3 million soldier records from 44 US states and territories. Visit the CWSS website to view it.
- Let the Department of Veterans Affairs help you find graves in veterans' cemeteries at their on-line Nationwide Gravesite Locator.
- Are you trying to locate Dad's World War II Army records? The National Archives (NARA) has just made World War II Army Service Numbers and other indexed data available on-line.
- S-K Publications Bracken County 1880 Census images are on-line at
USGenWeb. Note: The images are not indexed.
- Genealogy Buff - offering free resources
Bracken County Links
About RootsWeb Resources
RootsWeb was purchased and absorbed by Ancestry.com. Effective March 2020, posting of new queries and discussions on RootsWeb mail lists ended. Old queries and discussions are ARCHIVED and available only for browsing.
Visit Ancestry.com to learn what Bracken County, other county and state, surname, and special interest mail lists formerly available on RootsWeb may still be accessible without paid membership.
Except for private websites still hosted there, Rootsweb references and links have been removed from the KYGenWeb Bracken County website.
KyGenWeb County Resources
Support the KyGenWeb by contributing your unpublished Kentucky source materials to KY-FOOTSTEPS for permanent on-line access at all relevant project websites. Acceptable submissions include abstracts from public domain records, vital records, family bibles and other non-copyright sources. Click here to learn how.
Hosted County Pages and KyGenWeb Archives for Neighboring Counties:
Start Page for KY-FOOTSTEPS Table of Contents, with instructions for subscribing
USGenWeb Special Projects
Visit the Special Projects Start Page first, or go directly to a USGenWeb Project:
The Pennsylvania Connection
Many Kentucky pioneers came from what is now southwestern Pennsylvania. At the time of the American Revolution, it was part of the Virginia 'District of West Augusta' (comprised of Ohio, Monongalia and Yohogania counties, (see map) and the subject of a boundary dispute between the two colonies. Both claimed jurisdiction and carried out government functions such that residents were never certain if they lived in Pennsylvania or Virginia. The region is also the site of the Whiskey Rebellion that pushed many of the more individualistic pioneers further west. 'Redstone Old Fort,' near modern-day Pittsburgh, was the point of departure for the flatboats that carried settlers down the Ohio River into the Kentucky wilderness. If your ancestors were in Bracken County before 1800, there's a good chance you'll find them in southwestern Pennsylvania in the prior years.
A few early Bracken County surnames are found in even earlier southwestern Pennsylvania records. Just a few examples are: Bracken - Bradford - Bradley - Devore - Downing - McDowell - Shannon - Slack - (Van)Swearingen - Vallandingham - Wishart. Visit Washington County Genealogy and History to access three important local history sources:
- Beers Biographical Record, published by J.H. Beers & Co.
- Boyd Crumrine's 'History of Washington County, Pennsylvania with Biographical Sketches of Many of Its Pioneers and Prominent Men' (Philadelphia: L. H. Leverts & Co., 1882).
- Raymond M. Bell Anthology
Other Useful Web Links Recommended by KYGenWeb Managers and Website Visitors
The following links are a compilation of recommended websites discovered by KyGenWeb coordinators during web browsing. Some of the websites belong to repositories that are also important destinations for in-person research visits, so they are repeated in other appropriate places on this site. The following have been selected for their particularly useful ON-LINE databases and research help.
- New recommendations for 2017, contributed by Natalie Kelly of Forever Curious. Forever Curious is a group of librarians and educators who are curating and creating the best educational resources for kids on the web. Natalie has passed along some great recommendations of quality genealogical resources for family historians, as follows:
Top 100 Genealogy Sites
Resources for Military Families
How to Travel to Find Your Roots
Genealogy and the Law
Billiongraves
A Beginner's Guide to Building a Family Tree Online
Military Indexes
- KDLA - The Kentucky Division for Libraries and Archives. The Kentucky Division for Libraries and Archives is Kentucky's official state archives. Home of the permanent public records of Kentucky state government and many of the Commonwealth's local governments and judicial offices, KDLA is a key source for genealogical research. Log on and familiarize yourself with the KDLA holdings.
- The Kentucky Secretary of State Land Office. Kentucky's land records are managed by the Kentucky Secretary of State Land Office. The agency provides a searchable database on the website to explore land records. Or, go to their search engine to find out what county a Kentucky city is in.
- While you're browsing official Kentucky government websites, check in at the
Kentucky State Government Official Site, to see what else might be useful on-line.
- Explore the Kentucky Virtual Library 'Kentuckiana Digitial Library', filled with images of the past, and on-line oral history project data.
- The Kentucky Historical Society maintains several on-line searchable databases in their library catalogue, available to all users, including:
An on-line cemetery database. Still very much a work in progress. Many BRACKEN COUNTY cemeteries are now on-line.
HeritageQuest Online-Digitized from the popular UMI: Genealogy and Local History collection on microfiche, this online database is an essential collection of unique material for both genealogical hobbyists and professionals. Available to in-person visitors only.
- The Military Records and Research Branch (MRRB) is the archive of the Department of Military Affairs. Their holdings consist of discharge documents for over 300,000 Kentucky veterans from all conflicts from WWI through Desert Storm.
MRRB also contains historical records of all Kentucky militia and National Guard units from 1792 to the present. In excess of 75,000 inactive 201 files on former members of the Kentucky Army and Air Guard are maintained by MRRB as well as a military research library of some 1,000 volumes. The staff of five assists veterans, historians, recruiters, genealogists, and other government agencies in accessing information within MRRB's holdings, and maintains a standard of same-day service for answering most requests.
- A new link, the Civil War 13th Ky Cavalry Roster, was transcribed from the Soldiers & Sailors System Public Domain Documents and contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by Michelle Bowles on 10 April 2003
- If you research at a local LDS Family History Library, you can save precious visit time by doing your catalogue search at home, on-line. Know which films to order before you go. The catalogue of holdings, and a vast amount of learning tools, are all available on-line at the digital Family History Library.
- SAR, the Sons of the American Revolution, maintain an on-line library catalogue index.
- The National Genealogical Society maintains an Online Library Catalogue of their holdings.
- 'The Making of America' is an on-line digital collection that's part of the much larger digital library that you can browse on-line. The project is a joint venture of the University of Michigan and Cornell University and funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The MOA collection is a valuable resource to genealogists who care about the historical aspect of their family research. Of special interest is the collection of official records of the Union and Confederate Navies and Armies during the War of the Rebellion. You will find many references to individual participants on both sides. Visit the collection at the site of your choice: Cornell University or The University of Michigan
- Every genealogical researcher should know about NUCMC (the National Union Catalog of Manuscript Collections), especially its listing of repositories of primary sources. Want to know where the records are held? Check NUCMC--Visit NUCMC on-line.
- So your ancestors didn't exactly arrive on the Mayflower? Most of our ancestors 'missed the boat' by a few years, decades or centuries. Log on to the Ellis Island website to check the on-line collection of records for immigrants to the United States who arrived in New York between 1892 to 1924. Be sure to register. They don't bite.
- 'Mayflower' not listed here (or is it?). Visit The Ships List searchable database of passenger ship arrivals during the 19th and 20th centuries.
- Many early Kentuckians moved on and acquired land further west. Learn about federal land patents, search the database, and link directly to land offices for many U.S. states at the Bureau of Land Management website.
- Want to get the most out of the 1930 Census? Explore the NARA Guide to 1930 Census.
- Wish you could get to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), but Washington D.C. is just too far? Many informative NARA resources and training outlines are available at NARA's Digital Classroom website. Check out the wealth of pointers and tips under the sections captioned 'Conducting Research' and 'Locating Publications.'
- NARA, The National Archives, has released access to an Archival Databases System. This information was forwarded from New England Historical Genealogical Society (NEHGS) by RootsWeb list host Carolyn Seaman.
- NARA announces the availability of a reproduction of Civil War Wagonmaster Records that documents civilian service from a list of civilian wagonmasters who served the Union during the Civil War. This document adds to the fragmented body of records available to researchers. Find the information at the NARA website.
- The Library of Congress American Memory Collection contains many on-line images, manuscripts and other historical records that may turn up a valuable item for your research.
- Do you have an old military patch or photo of an ancestor in military attire? Identifying the miliary unit will greatly aid in finding the ancestor's military records. This Army Historical website helped me find the elusive World War I records for my husband's grandfather from a photo that showed his unit insignia. Maybe it can help you.
- The U.S. Census Bureau offers an on-line search tool to find a county by place name.
- Look up the US Census demographics for Bracken County
- Visit the Illinois State Archives death index database. Many Kentuckians migrated to Illinois beginning in the early 19th Century. You might find an ancestor or two recorded here.
- Every county has its Political Graveyard. Check out the political figures who lived or were born in Bracken County. Maybe one of them was your ancestor.
- City of Augusta, KY, a web site with information for the visitor to Augusta, Kentucky
- An on-line surname submission form, Genealogist's Index to the World Wide Web, was contributed to this site by an unknown submitter.
- Check out the Genealogy Research Associates, Inc. list of City Directories in the U.S. and where they are archived
- Nancy Trice recommends this listserv that shows you how to date old postcards
- A worldwide compilation of primary source repositories, created by Terry Abraham at the University of Idaho.
- Find your Maryland ancestors at the on-line Maryland State Archives.
- NEW! A Great Find! ourtimelines.com lets you place your ancestor (or yourself) in the historical context and learn about famous contemporaries. This is a good way to gain insight into the world in which they lived. Thanks to Jo Hogle, RootsWeb HILDRETH surname list owner for sharing this useful link.
This list will continue to grow as KyGenWeb volunteers discover and pass along
other valuable on-line data and learning tools for genealogists.
Last Updated Thursday, 12-Jan-2023 03:15:03 CST
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