NBC's  Who Do You Think You Are has yet another North Carolina connection this week. Tonight;s episode (8pm, NBC) finds country singer Reba McEntire researching her family tree at the North Carolina State Archives. 

Tonight's episode of Who Do You Think You Are (8pm, NBC) has a special North Carolina connection. Meredith College history professor Dr. Dan Fountain was consulted and worked with actor Blair Underwood to trace his lineage in a genealogical journey that includes a DNA test, a trip to Africa, and articles that reveal the hardships and unforeseen triumphs of his ancestors. Read Brooke Cain's story about Fountain and his work on the show.

Last year, a joint project of UNC's North Carolina Collection, the State Archives and the Outer Banks History Center completed a project to scan and digitize more than 3,000 maps published from the late 1500s to 2000.

North Carolina Maps contains maps from each of the 100 counties, including highways, railroad maps, post office routes, fire insurance maps and geological maps. A 1936 highway map presents a view of the state without any I-40, in fact, without any interstate highways at all. The  Coast and Geodetic Survey shows changes in the state's coastline over time.

Maps are searchable by location, date or subject. The online viewer allows you to zoom in on the map and move around interactively.

In September, this map collection was one of three North Carolina sites to win an Award of Merit for Leadership in History from the American Association for State and Local History.
 

The Virginia Historical Society has loaded a searchable database of more than 1,500 slave names, with links back to original documents such as wills, bills of sale, court records, deeds, and deeds of emancipation. The database is searchable by the first and last name of the slave, the owner's name, the slave's occupation and location.

The project, called Unknown No Longer, is a work in progress, and historians continue to add information pulled from the nearly eight million items in the society's unpublished manuscript collection.

Now through September 5, you can search Ancestry.com's immigration and travel records for free.

This collection includes passport applications and border crossings, so you may be able to get information not only for immigrants but for an ancestor who traveled for fun or worked overseas.

Passenger lists go back to 1820. The information in these records varies over time, but you may find details such as marital status, last residence, final destination, literacy, financial status, place of birth, physical description, or the name and address of the passenger's closest living relative in his home country.

There's also a downloadable research guide to working with passenger lists.
 

If you are an experienced genealogist, then this post is not for you. But if you're just getting your feet wet, there are several documents produced by the Heritage Research Center at High Point Public Library which provide a good step-by-step introduction to genealogical resources available in North Carolina.

If you find yourself more than a little intimidated by the state archives and all the researchers there who seem to know exactly what they're doing, the Heritage Research Center's beginner's guide to the NC state archives tells you exactly what to expect, right down to where to park, where to enter the building, what you need to take with you and what you must leave outside, and exactly how to request material.

The other guides are very specific about what you can (and cannot) find in census records, land records, wills and estates, and other vital records. They also explore resources specific to researching African-American families.
 

With a little less than a year before the detailed 1940 census records are released, you may have already mined the 1930 records for every last tidbit. But if you're new to research, this video stepping you through census records might help you zero in on some grandparents.

When the 1930 records were first released in 2002, Craig Jarvis introduced us to researchers who were waiting (or not) to get their hands on the microfilmed records.  

North Carolina researchers will have to wait until late summer before any copies of the microfilm records show up in this state, unless they want to travel to the National Archives in Washington, D.C., or one of the regional branches where the material will be available today.

That means researchers can look up people in those states by name, using an alphanumeric system. Without indexes, the search has to be based on location. -- The News & Observer, 4/1/2002

The National Archives Civil War records have been digitized and are available on Ancestry.com. This week (through Thursday), you can search them for free.

By searching a name, you can learn when your soldier enlisted, which company he served, and what became of him. The company name is often a hyperlink to the unit itself, listing all the battles it fought and linking to a list of all soldiers in that unit. Many of the battles also link to a narrative description of the event.

Learn more about the digitized records here.

And be sure to check out this collection of Civil War portraits.

The Durham County Library is hosting six free sessions on how to gather basic genealogical information and write your family history, starting Thursday.

Registration is required. The details:

WHAT: Genealogy 101

WHEN: noon to 1:30 p.m. on Thursdays, from Sept. 25 through Oct. 30.

WHERE: Durham's Main Library, 300 N. Roxboro St., Third Floor Conference Room

DESCRIPTION: Learn how to gather basic genealogical information, interpret records and overcome roadblocks, organize and write your family history, get the most out of internet resources, and use local, regional and national repositories.