Department of Cultural Resources
Researching Your Civil War Ancestors – Free Genealogy Workshop
April 13, 2013 Genealogy Workshop: Researching Your Civil War Ancestors
Footprints identified in copy of early North Carolina laws
The North Carolina Digital Collections has digitized laws going back to the mid-1700s. With thousands of pages, you can probably imagine that we don’t look through them all when we receive the files from the Internet Archive scanning center.
Click image to see more. Page is from the “Collection of all the public acts of Assembly, of the province of North-Carolina …” (1752).
However, this page, from our copy of the Collection of all the public acts of Assembly, of the province of North-Carolina (1752) brought considerable attention. We’ve finally identified the animal bounding across the page – it’s a squirrel. We’re not sure what kind (although we’re hopeful that it’s a Gray Squirrel, which happens to be the official state mammal). The size of the prints and the way the hind leg prints are before the front leg prints helped us finally identify it.
We’ve been trying to figure this out for awhile, especially with all of the hype that cats get when they’ve left their paws on manuscripts. Kudos to Carol Sciurus, who finally figured it out.
Dare County – yesterday and today
“Dare County in the 1930s,” a special photo exhibit, opened on March 1st at the Outer Banks History Center. The exhibit will remain up through October 15th. If your travel plans during that time take you to Manteo, it is worth checking out!
The exhibit got me thinking about some of the interesting images we have of Dare County’s libraries and bookmobiles from the 1950s and 1960s. You may view them all in the NC Digital Collections. We also have them, along with other old library images, on HistoryPin!
Do you have family or ancestors who lived in Dare County? The NC Family Records Online collection has several sets of bible records and a cemetery survey that include individuals who lived in Dare County.
If all of these resources have you wanting to learn at bit more about Dare County, NCpedia has several articles about places in Dare County and people who lived in Dare County. The article about Dare County from the University of North Carolina Press’s Encyclopedia of North Carolina may be found at http://ncpedia.org/geography/dare. Included in the entry is a slideshow of images from Flickr users that people have contributed. If you have digital images of Dare County, or any of North Carolina’s 100 counties, to share with NCpedia, instructions on how to contribute them may be found at http://ncpedia.org/contribute#photos.
A new Pinterest board illustrates some of the resources and articles mentioned above! It’s at http://pinterest.com/ncghl/dare-county-nc-yesterday-and-today/.
Symphony Stories
If you attended school in North Carolina, then chances are you’ve had the opportunity to participate in the North Carolina Symphony’s educational concert program. The Government and Heritage Library is very pleased to provide access to a new online collection of the student guidebooks, originally titled Symphony Stories, which were given to children as part of that program. The North Carolina Symphony’s music education program began in 1945, with the combined efforts of then Music Director Benjamin Swalin, his wife Maxine, and Director of Education Adeline McCall. The program is designed to introduce students to the fundamentals of music, musical terminology, the instruments of the orchestra, and the concert repertoire, culminating in a live performance by the North Carolina Symphony.
Dating back to 1947, these booklets give students a look into composers’ lives, teach proper concert behavior, and provide an introduction to the music they will hear in their live concert. They include the concert’s program as well as wonderful images and snippets of music scores. The Symphony Stories provide a fascinating look back at the North Carolina Symphony’s history and the great work they’ve done bringing music to the lives of millions of children.
