Godfrey Memorial Library

Your Research is About to Get a Little Easier

Godfrey Memorial Library announces the Godfrey One Step Search! This new search engine is available to all Godfrey Scholar Levels.  Go to our home page www.godfrey.org, select the Search tab and choose Godfrey Search from the drop down menu. Read the information there and start simplifying your research!

Central Connecticut Cemeteries on Godfrey Website

Godfrey Library is in the process of placing central Connecticut cemetery information on its website. These databases include headstone information, headstone photograpghs and, in many cases, additional information, such as the exact date of death, found in other source material. Here is the current list.

Chester - Congregation Rodfe Zedek Cemetery

Chesterfield - Chesterfield Cemetery, Lakes Pond Cemetery

Colchester - Bull Hill Cemetery, Scott Hill Road Cemetery

East Haddam - Bashan Cemetery, Cove Burying Ground, Hadlyme Church Cemetery, Leesville Cemetery, Mt. Parnassus Cemetery, Parker Cemetery, Tater Hill Cemetery, Warner Cemetery, Wicket Lane Cemetery

East Hampton - Skinnerville Cemetery, Tartia Cemetery

Haddam - Old Rock Landing Cemetery, Ackley Cemetery, Beaver Meadows Cemetery, Little City Cemetery, Turkey Hill Cemetery

Hartford - Jewish Cemeteries

Middletown - St. John's Old Cemetery, Connecticut Valley Cemetery

Moodus - Foxtown Cemetery, Moodus Cemetery, St. Bridget Cemetery

Northford - Northford Cemetery Burial Records 1924-2007

Norwich - St. Nicholas Cemetery

The Godfrey website is www.godfrey.org

Central Connecticut Cemeteries on Godfrey Library Website

Godfrey Library continues its project of researching central Connecticut cemeteries and placing them on its Godfrey Scholar website under the "Cemetery Databases" folder. The current list includes 18 cemeteries, with tombstone photos, from the following towns: Colchester, East Haddam, East Hampton, Haddam, Hartford, Middletown, Moodus, Northford, Norwich and South Windsor. There are many more to come, so stop back frequently at www.godfrey.org.

African American Experience, Oral History, Who's Who & Who Was Who

Godfrey Library has added three new databases to its Godfrey Scholar program.

The African American Experience is a full text digital resource exploring the history and culture of African Americans. Its two primary goals: provide solid information from authorities in the field and offer a large number of primary sources. This database includes over 400 volumes.

Oral History Online is 34,000 pages of English language oral histories ranging from Ellis Island narratives to Black Panther interviews. This database will be updated quarterly and currently includes more than 100,000 index entries.

Who's Who contains 33,000 short biographies, continually updated, of living noteworthy individuals from all walks of life worldwide. Who Was Who is 11 volumes of individuals who died from 1897 to 2005. Additional volumes are published every five years

City Directories and Vital Records

During the late 19th century city directories sometimes included vital records in their listings. That was true of several Connecticut cities as well. Inside the Godfrey Collection of the Godfrey Scholar program, the library has recently added the vital records sections of the following city directories: Middletown-Portland 1887-1897, Hartford 1890-1891, Winsted-Torrington 1890-1891. The library has also included the entire Hartford City Directory for 1848.

The Godfrey Library website is www.godfrey.org or call 860.346.4375

Godfrey Library Adds New Links for March

Godfrey Library, which researches, evaluates and posts sites for its subscribers announced new sites for March. New links include sites for Alabama, Kansas, Minnesota and Texas researchers, plus a scattering of additional sites. If you are doing research in Massachusetts, for example, you know about Massachusetts Vital Records to 1849, also known as the "tan books." We have added the site that includes those records. For more infomation visit the site at www.godfrey.org.

What Do I Get With My Godfrey Scholar Subscription?

Godfrey Scholars are entitled to access Connecticut births records not yet 100 years old, as stated in Section 7-51 of the Connecticut General Statutes. Access is otherwise severely limited to professional genealogists and a few other groups.

Godfrey Scholar subscriptions are in four levels.

Red Subscription

Godfrey Collection - The complete contents of more than 4,000 genealogies, biographies, memoirs and funeral sermons housed at the library.

Newspapers - 19th Century Newspapers, Early American Newspapers, African American Newspapers and the London Times 1785-1985

County histories from New York, Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey and Pennsylvania before 1900

American Civil War research plus letters and diaries

North American immigrant letters, diaries and oral histories plus women's letters and diaries

Links to free websites - Researched, evaluated and organized, this constantly updated source provides access to thousands of free websites

Blue Subscription

This level includes everything in the red subscription plus NewsPaper Archives, the largest collection of newspapers online with more than 3,200 titles from the United States and Canada from the 1700's through the 19th century

Green Subscription

This level includes everything in the red subscription plus World Vital Records, one of the largest online genealogical sites. It includes thousands of sources, some which are not available elsewhere

Gold Subscription

This level includes everything in the red, blue and green levels and is  best in terms of overall cost

Cost

Red subscription - $35

Blue subscription - $65

Green subscription - $75

Gold subscription - $100

For more subscription information, contact the library through its website at www.godfrey.org or by telephone at 860.346.4375

What Do You Get as a Godfrey Scholar?

The Godfrey Scholar program has four attractive pricing levels, but much of the content is in the Basic or Red level. Here is what is included in the Red Godfrey Scholar level subscription.

Accessible Archives - County histories, early Pennsylvania newspapers and African American databases.

American Civil War Letters and Diaries - 100,000 pages by 2,000 authors. Completely indexed.

American Civil War Research Database - Information on 4.3 million soldiers and thousands of battles; 16,000 photographs.

American National Biography Online - Profiles of 17,400 men and women nationwide.

Black Thought and Culture - 100,000 pages of writings by leaders of the black community from early times to the present.

British and Irish Women's Letters and Diaries - 100,000 pages by 500 women. It includes some biographies.

Columbia Gazetteer - Database of names, descriptions and characteristics of 165,000 places around the world.

Early American Newspapers - Newspapers dating from 1690 to 1876. Most before 1850.

Godfrey Collection - Almost 4,000 genealogies, biographies, memoirs and funeral sermons. A very large and very popular collection.

Godfrey Search - Sampling of genealogies, cemetery records, church records, city directories, funeral sermons, military records, town records and vital records we hold. Some are one of a kind.

Links - 3,000 links to other sites that we have researched and evaluated and decided have important information for genealogists. All are free, though some require registration and a few are partially paid. You could find these on your own, but we did the work up front. We add about 50 sites a month.

London Times - Complete newspaper from 1785 to 1985.

Miscellaneous Resources - A wide variety of databases from care of tombstones to surname distribution to historical photographs to archaic medical terms. Databases that don't quite fit somewhere else.

Nineteenth Century Newspapers - Wide Variety of newspapers from all states. Most are 1850 and after. Many small town newspapers.

North American Immigrant Letters, Diaries and Histories - 100,000 pages from 2,100 people about what it meant to immigrate to North America from 1800 to 1950.

OCLC WorldCat - Searches hundreds of libraries around the world, including Godfrey Library. If you know the title of a book, for example, but don't know where to find it, WorldCat will tell you.

Oxford African American Studies Center - 10,549 sources including 5,000 biographies in arts and leisure, business and labor, education, gevernment and politics, history, religion and science.

Oxford Dictionary of National Biography - 56,521 biographies of people who shaped the history of the British Isles.

Reference USA - Super residential database for United States and Canada.

Unique Resources - A variety of materials centering on Connecticut and Italy. Most doe not appear elsewhere on the internet.

Who's Who on the Web - 1.3 million men and women from around the world. Includes American biographies.

For more information check with Godfrey's website (www.godfrey.org) or call the library at 860-346-4375.

Connecticut Links and Sites on Godfrey Scholar

The Godfrey Scholar subscription contains 128 Connecticut links and sites for Connecticut. About a dozen of these sites, mostly cemetery records and church records from central Connecticut, do not appear elsewhere on the internet. This central Connecticut group of databases was digitized by Godfrey Library staff. Additional databases will be added in 2009.

New titles added online

These books are now available electronically through the Godfrey Scholar Program for the state of Massachusetts:  Fitchburg MA Past and Present; History of Gloucester Cape Ann MA; History of Newburyport MA 1764-1909; Historical Sketch of the Old Sixth Regiment MA Volunteers 1861-1864; History of Woburn Middlesex County MA 1640-1860; Kingston MA Vital Records to 1850; MA Civil List 1630-1774; Norton MA Vital Records to 1850; Town of Weston Records 1746-1803; Topographical and Historical Description of Boston MA; Wrentham MA Vital Records to 1850.  These other titles are also available: Stevens Genealogy (Fitz Stephen); Life and Letters of Francis Lieber; History of Brunswick Topsham Harpswell ME; History of Sligo Ireland 1688-1892.  All of these titles are searchable using Adobe Acrobat Reader version 7 or higher.