Lost and Found

The goal of OriginalAncestry is to offer people a chance to own pieces of their family history as well as have access to information in private collections.  How cool would it be to own a letter written by your great-great-great-grandfather?  Or a legal document related to a direct branch on your mother's side of the tree?  We could offer hundreds of thousands of documents, but it would still be a drop in the genealogy bucket.  Therefore, if you cannot find it here, try some of these other great sites.

Justajoy.com - Joy Shivar created this site in 2011 with the intent of reuniting people with their family heirlooms.  The site has just been redesigned and looks great!  Her inventory includes over 100,000 surnames and has a number of dealers involved.

The Past on Paper - Similar to OriginalAncestry, Christian Mayne, has taken it upon himself to create a beautiful website aimed at making private collections available to genealogists and family historians.  The Past on Paper specializes in family bibles, postcards, photos, and documents.

Ancestorville - Run by the mayor of Ancesorville, Debra Clifford has done an excellent job in creating a community of family history researchers looking to find pieces of their history.  She has a growing collection of 10,000+ photos and documents. 

Timothy Hughes Rare & Early Newspapers - Started 30 years ago, this company has managed to grow its inventory to over 2 million newspapers!  I have purchased from them on multiple occasions because of the uniqueness of the gift item.  It's one thing to look up newspapers on genealogy sites, it's another thing to own them.  They provide you with a detailed search capability that can help you find original newspapers related to your ancestors. 

Ancestor Homes - I had to come back and edit my blog article after stumbling on Ancestor Homes.  They are brand new and an excellent resource for property deed records.  They have a growing archive that can help people connect with their original documents.  With companies like this, more and more genealogy brick walls will be broken down because of access to private collections. 

So if you are unable to locate a document that ties to your family tree on OriginalAncestry, try out these other sites.  The people behind these sites have put a lot of hard work in making these products available. 

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