bigpigeon.us webpage Home > Resources > Pay Sites, updated by RAC 24 Mar 2021. 

This is a collection of links to pay web resources (currently all ancestry.com) that I use in my research. From here you can also: ​
With ancestry.com, I generally use the following overall search, which checks all databases listed below for the individuals who meet the specified criteria: ​
==> ancestry.com - Birth, Marriage and Death records (i.e, vital records, mostly Iowa-specific): Commentary - vital records:
  • An Iowa marriage record in ancestry.com often includes an image of the entire marriage document.
  • Iowa, Births and Christenings Index and Iowa, Marriage Records are from Iowa Department of Public Health records.
  • Iowa, Select Marriage Index and Iowa, Deaths and Burials are from familysearch.org.
  • To search the ELCA database for St. Paul’s Lutheran Church, Boomer-Neola, enter Neola, Pottawattamie, Iowa in the any event row. However, most of this data is not indexed so you may need to browse the 500-1000 pages of St. Paul's data. You might find more-complete data in the St. Paul's History area of my website.

​==> ancestry.com - Wills, Probates, Land, Tax & Criminal: 
Iowa Government: US Government : Commentary - US Government:
  • Older Social Security death records do not include the death date, rather only the year and month.
Land:
https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1246/​ - U.S., General Land Office Records, 1776-2015 (); 9,599 Pott. Co. records.

==> ancestry.com - Census and Voter Lists (for the United States and Iowa):
  • United States census data through 1940. (The 1890 data was destroyed in a fire. 1950 data should be released in 2022.
  • Iowa census data for 1885, 1895, 1905 and 1915 plus 1850s Pottawattamie County censuses.
Commentary - Census data:
  • I have not listed individual databases, as there are nearly 20. Do an overall search.​

==> ancestry.com - Schools, Directories & Church Histories: Commentary - Schools, Directories & Church Histories:
  • The US, City Directories database contains around 57 Council Bluffs directories from 1866 to 1959.
  • Older public records indices, from 1950 to 1993, are in two databases, which I have not listed.
  • Because of this multiplicity of databases, its generally better to do an overall search.
  • Public records indices often contain birthdates of living individuals.

​==> ancestry.com - Newspapers & Publications:
==> ancestry.com - Stories, Memories & Histories:
==> ancestry.com - Maps, Atlases & Gazetteers:
Iowa gazetteers: Plats:
https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/2179/ - U.S., Indexed Early Land Ownership and Township Plats, 1785-1898 (browse, 917 pages).
https://www.ancestry.com/search/collections/1127/ - U.S., Indexed County Land Ownership Maps, 1860-1918 (6,940,589 records).
Commentary - Maps, Atlases & Gazetteers:
  • With some of these databases, you'll want to explore ancestry's browsing feature.

==> ancestry.com - Military (non-WWII data): Commentary - Military (non-WWII data):
  • The 1863-1865 Civil War Draft Registration produced lists containing little personal data.
  • There were two World War I draft registration dates.
  • WW II databases are in Resources - WW II > WW II Pay Sites.

==> ancestry.com - Immigration & Travel: Commentary - Immigration & Travel:
  • The New York harbor passenger lists database contains ships' passenger manifests; expect many misspellings of immigrant's names. 

==> ancestry.com - Family Trees: Commentary - Family Trees:
  • An overall search for an individual will access only one family tree.
  • To access ancestry.com family trees from within a search, click on Family Trees at the bottom of the left column.
  • The rootsweb family trees, collectively called the worldconnect project, probably tend to be older than the ancestry.com family trees. Anyone can access these trees.

General Commentary on the above:
  • Non-ancestry.com members can still access these databases through ancestry.com. However, not all the information will be shown.
  • I usually search ancestry.com by first selecting the Search option and then clicking on All Selections in the drop-down menu.
  • familysearch.org, the free LDS analog of ancestry.com, accesses some of the same data as ancestry.com. However, I don't believe familysearch.org databases are searchable by county. In ancestry.com, one can search by county and even by township or city.
  • A newer subscription servic is myheritage.org. It  seems to be strong in the Danish information it provides.