Many records have been digitalized and made available on the world wide web.
The state of Virginia seems to be leading the effort. Many early records from the Virginia house of Burgesses are available for viewing and pre-date Jefferson, Madison, and the constitution.
If you really want to have some insight into what our ancestors were like just do a little browsing and you'll be amazed as you see pieces of their lives from a public records point of view.
http://www.rootsweb.com//url]
[url=http://www.rootsweb.com/roots-l/usa.html]http://www.rootsweb.com/roots-l/usa.htmlThese are excellent sites for finding and understanding your ancestors.
Virginia, has the tombstone project. When you drill down into it, you get to a place where you can search for records.
http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/virginia/virginia.htmlFrom here, you can select a county. When you select a county there are several radio buttons one of which allow you to seach the entire archives.
While searching for my family history, I found my 5th great grandfather was a sheriff and his name appears in a lot of court documents. My 7th great grandfather was a clerk of the Virginia house of Burgess and his name appears on many historical documents.
While searching for my ancestors I found many documents that paints a picture of the political problems that were occuring at that time, and several views on many of the issues we discuss today.
Did you know there was a tax of 2 wolf heads that had to be paid? If not paid the tax was $15.......
Most of the other states don't seem to be as far in the process as Virginia..
beware......this can be addictive and can use lots of your time.
Here's the link to the radio buttons for Patrick county Virginia:
http://www.rootsweb.com/~cemetery/virginia/index_patrick.htm#search
