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The Spokesman-Review Newspaper
Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Join The Fun And Share Your Tips

Donna Potter Phillips The Spokes

Today’s column continues our summer genealogy miscellany. If you have a tip or source to share, please send it to me c/o this newspaper.

The Historic Emigration Office in Hamburg, Germany, offers the service of finding your ancestors’ names on a passenger list if they left Europe via Hamburg between 1850 and 1934.

The fee is $60, U.S. funds (personal checks accepted), and the address is P.O. Box 102249, Hamburg 20015, Germany. Including all known details about your ancestor will greatly help the search. However, expect a wait of nearly a year.

You can tackle this problem yourself by using microfilmed passenger lists and with help from the Family History Center.

Shary Jackson shares a different kind of success story: Jackson located all but nine of 169 of her classmates from Walla Walla High School for a 50th reunion. She says her sources have been the usual ones - car registration, church and cemetery records, college alumni books, employment and newspaper records.

To inquire about her searching details, write to her at 40 N.W. B St., College Place, WA 99324-1003.

“Tracing Your Donegal Ancestors,” by Godfrey Duffy, is the first of a new series published by Flyleaf Press. This book details church, census, civil registration records, land, probate and newspaper records from County Donegal in Ireland. Next in the series will be similar books for counties Mayo, Galway and Cork. James Ryan, noted Irish researcher, says Donegal families were an interesting mixture of native Irish and Scots-Irish who arrived from the late 17th century onward. It’s one of the Irish counties to experience a high level of emigration.

Order this book for $18.50 (includes airmail postage) from Flyleaf Press, 4 Spencer Villas, Glenageary, Co. Dublin, Ireland.

Big news, Arkansas researchers! Portions of the Arkansas vital records indexes are available for sale on microfiche. Death indexes span 1914-1946; marriage indexes cover 1933-1939; and divorce indexes are for 1923-1939. For more information, send an SASE to Arkansas Research, P.O. Box 303, Conway, AR 72033.

The Arkansas Historical and Genealogical Magazine carried a short article on “monsters” hiding in your family records. The article identified these monsters as common transparent tape (which turns dreadfully sticky), rubber bands (which undergo a metamorphosis into a sticky, staining, ugly worm before they die and petrify), and paper clips and other metal fasteners (which rust and stain at the first hint of moisture).

Deal with this issue now. Go through your records and eliminate the monster-makers!

Perhaps you’ve seen the offer for a CD-ROM containing five of the most used genealogy reference books (The Library of Congress, “The Archives,” “The Redbook,” “The Library” and “The Source”) for $59.95.

InfoBases, producer of the disk, now offers a more attractive deal. Calling the disk “Family History Suite,” it contains six additional databases and programs for only $10 more: “Ancestral Quest 2.0,” “The Pioneer Heritage Library (mostly Latter-day Saints pioneers),” “Vital Records Library” (mostly early LDS and Utah records), “The Geographic Reference Library,” “The World Wide Family History Network” and “Deluxe Journal Keeper” have been added to the Ancestry Reference Library.

Order the “Family History Suite” for $69.95 by calling (800) 537-7823, or write to Infobases, Inc., 305 N. 500 West, Suite C, Provo, UT 84601.

, DataTimes MEMO: Donna Potter Phillips welcomes letters from readers. Write to her at The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. For a response, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Donna Potter Phillips The Spokesman-Review

Donna Potter Phillips welcomes letters from readers. Write to her at The Spokesman-Review, Features Department, P.O. Box 2160, Spokane, WA 99210. For a response, please include a self-addressed, stamped envelope.

The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = Donna Potter Phillips The Spokesman-Review