There are more databases online for genealogical research than ever before. Indexing projects are enormous undertakings, and I’m grateful for the massive investments of time and resources that have made them possible.
We know that the spelling of names were often not standardized generations ago, so we know that we should check records for name variations. [...]

I’ve learned a couple of basic genealogy lessons the hard way doing family history research over the years. Learn from my experience and save yourselves time and effort!
Talk to older members of your family. You may find the answers are right in front of you.
For example, my mom had a letter from her grandmother, which [...]

Until about 1845 German emigrants generally chose Antwerp, Rotterdam, or Le Havre as ports of departure.  By the middle of the nineteenth century, entrepreneurs in the north German ports of Bremen and Hamburg realized they could increase their income dramatically by filling ships with emigrants bound for America and other destinations.
The Hamburg Passenger Lists that [...]

It was exciting to work on the Tim McGraw episode of “Who Do You Think You Are?”. A lot of hard work went into determining which stories could be used from the research conducted by ProGenealogists (a Division of Ancestry.com), Ancestry.com, ShedMedia, and some local researchers. Southern States work is not easy and numerous records [...]

For all those of you out there doing New York City research, you have no doubt probably found the online vital record indexes on sites like ItalianGen (www.italiangen.org) or GermanGen (www.germangenalogygroup.com) most valuable. I use these sites on a regular basis because I generally find references to such records as marriage, death, birth and naturalization fairly quickly. [...]

Sometimes it takes hours to find a little bit of information. Recently I was looking for a possible death of a child that possibly immigrated in 1884 to New York City. The name of the child was Boruch but may have been changed to a more English sounding name. The last name of this family [...]

One of my colleagues introduced me to the finding aids created by Stephen P. Morse. His website offers a number of tools that make searching various online databases easier. I frequently use his Ellis Island Gold Form when I’m having a hard time finding a passenger list, and I’ve recently discovered his handy tool to [...]

Research always becomes more real to me when I’m able to get a better idea of the context surrounding a particular event in an ancestor’s life.  As we all know, immigration is a key event that can help link an ancestor to the old country as well as provide other information vital to our research.  [...]

Just in case you weren’t aware– the 1899 Nashville City Directory offers some astute advice for researchers:

This advice is true on, oh, so many levels. I have had people tell me quite forcefully that they could not possibly be related to a certain individual because the other person’s surname was spelled differently. I’ve had the [...]

A close loved one of mine recently passed away. At the time of the death a treasure trove of documents pertaining to the family was created though the estate was very small. There are more death records than the modern death certificate provided by a county or state government agency:

The assisted living facility, nursing home, [...]