Weather | Sports | Forums | Comics | Classifieds | Calendar | Movies

Trimming the rising costs of your search

The cost of tracing one's tree has skyrocketed over the past five years since government agencies and entrepreneurs got a whiff of just how much money can be made off genealogists. The Social Security Administration, for example, now charges $27 to copy an application for a card. The cost was $7 just three years ago. Courthouses and state archives now charge search fees. Dozens of fee-based Web sites have popped up all over the Internet.

You can't change the fees, but you can save a few bucks by taking advantage of services and resources offered by your public library.

Residents of Hillsborough and Pasco counties and most of Pinellas County can access Heritage Quest and Ancestry Plus on their home computers for free. All you need is a public library card, according to Elaine Birkinshaw, manager of special projects at the St. Petersburg Public Library. Simply log on to the library's Web site (www.splibraries.org) click on the red library card icon and register. Then select a PIN and enter it in the appropriate spot on the online application.

Once you're registered, return to the library's home page. Click on databases, indicate you're accessing from a remote site and choose any of the databases. You're in!

The databases are free to you because the St. Petersburg Public Library subscribes to them. No computer at home? You can access the databases on a computer at the library. No charge! (The main branch of the Hillsborough County Library offers both Heritage Quest and Ancestry on-site and Heritage Quest remotely).

Bill Baird, a St. Petersburg reader, e-mailed me about the recent column on old-time diseases. "I enjoyed the column today on what did in our ancestors. One I would like to share with you is summer complaint. I ran across this for the first time in a Pittsburgh family, in which five of the six children died before they were 18 months old, all of summer complaint.

A couple of cousins of this same family were listed as dying from the same illness. After much digging, I found this ailment was cholera infantum, or children's cholera, brought on by dirty drinking water and/or utensils. I am sure you will get more of searchers' own pet diseases, but I thought I would share this one with you."

Ever been puzzled by an ancestor's occupation? Jerry McGinty, an experienced researcher from Indian Shores and a volunteer in the Largo Library genealogy department, sent along this list of names for old occupations:

Accomptant, accountant; amanuensis, secretary or stenographer; baxter, baker; bluestocking, female writer; boniface, innkeeper; brazier, one who works with brass; brightsmith, metal worker; burgonmaster, mayor; chaisemaker, carriage maker; chandler, dealer, trader, candlemaker, grocer; chiffonnier, wigmaker; clerk, clergyman, cleric; collier, coal miner; colporteur, book peddler; cooper, one who makes or repairs casks, barrels and tubs; crowner, coroner; fletcher, maker of bows and arrows; hacker, maker of hoes; hillier, roof tiler; hind, farm laborer; hostler, a horse groom; hooker, reaper; hooper, one who made hoops for casks and barrels; jagger, fish peddler; joyner/joiner, a skilled carpenter; keeler, bargeman; kempster, wool comber; lavender, washer woman; lederer, leathermaker; leech, physician; lormer, maker of horse gear; malender, farmer; maltster, brewer; pigman, crockery dealer; plumber, one who applied sheet lead for roofing and set lead frames for plain or stained glass windows; ripper, fish seller; shrieve, sheriff; tinker, itinerant tin pot and pan seller and repairer; tipstaff, policeman; wainwright, wagonmaker; whitesmith, tinsmith, worker of iron who finishes or polishes the work; whitewing, street sweeper; whitster, bleacher of cloth; yeoman, farmer who owns his own land.

Read past Donna Murray Allen columns online at www.sptimes.com Type "Donna Murray Allen" in the search box. You can write to Allen c/o Floridian, St. Petersburg Times, P.O. Box 1121, St. Petersburg, FL 33731, or e-mail her at rootscolumn@yahoo.com Her Web site, www.rootsdetective.com includes information on classes and lectures. Allen welcomes your questions about genealogy and will respond to those of general interest in future columns.