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Research Resources

There are a lot of resources you can tap into to learn about the past. The important thing to remember is to make sure you verify that you are being is accurate as possible. It's very tempting to copy someone else's family tree or resource info but you should always fact check it first. Make sure you're looking at the right person and that the source is legitimate. Here are ideas to get you started.

Places to Search
There are many places to search when looking for background information on a person. The internet certainly has made it easier but not everything has been digitized. There are literally millions of physical documents and photos that have not been scanned.
  • City or Town Clerk's Office: This is one of the best places to start. You can find birth, marriage, and death certificates.
  • City or Town Historical Societies
  • The Vermont Genealogy Library (Essex Junction)
  • Vermont State Archives (Middlesex)
  • Local museums, such as the St Albans Museum or the Rokeby
  • Church records. 
  • Local Civic organizations
  • Family Bibles
Online Research
The two most common research sites are Ancestry.com and 
FamilySearch.org. Ancestry is fee based, though FamilySearch is managed by the Mormon Church and is a free service. While many of the records are duplicated, you should always check both sites if you can, as you may find vital information only listed in one place.

If you register through the state of Vermont website, it will give you free access to Vermont records for both Ancestry.com and Newspapers.com. 
https://secure.vermont.gov/myvermont/myvermont.php

The National Archives has an entire section dedicated to genealogy and has a lot of helpful lessons as well. This is only for federal records, not local so you will not find things like birth or death certificates here: https://www.archives.gov/research/genealogy

Find a Grave is a great source. It usually has a photo of the stone and the information found, plus it links to family members and you'll sometimes find stories. Important: all of this information is uploaded by volunteers and is not fact checked, as far as I know. We have already found a couple mistakes as well as a duplicate listing. Here's the direct link to the VBG listing:
https://www.findagrave.com/cemetery/2296017

This site is full of information about Vermont. Here's the link for Vergennes: 
https://sites.rootsweb.com/~vermont/AddisonVergennes.html

Vermont in the Civil War is also a very interesting website with a lot of information about Civil War soldiers, though it seems like it might be unmonitored and hard to access properly. 
https://vermontcivilwar.org/ 
If the pages don't load properly, you can use the Wayback Machine: 
https://archive.org/web/

Birthdate calculator (for working backwards from the death date): 
http://www.searchforancestors.com/utility/birthday.html
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