I have a third-great-grandmother, Mary J. Freeman, who I recently decided to focus on in order to learn about her origins, which I only knew from census records as New York. Her husband was Royal Oliver. I found four records on FamilySearch accounting for their marriage in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in 1856, though they varied a [...]

Genealogy-enthusiasts will oftentimes be approached by budding researchers and asked to give lessons, crash-courses, or a few tips on tracing family trees. While there’s no official guideline for research, the following brief outline can be very helpful in introducing newbies to genealogy. It goes over a few of the basic record-categories (census, immigration, and vital records) and discusses free websites to get [...]

Most people know more about their family history than they think they do. I often run into clients who assure me that the minimal information they’ve provided is ALL they know. Usually after a brief review of their information, I come up with several questions that I think they can probably answer. They usually can.
I [...]

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 [...]

This morning I did something that I’ve never done before. I printed an Application for License to Marry from the Salt Lake Couty Clerk’s website and filled out my half, the bride’s half, of the form. I am getting married soon, you see, and my fiancé and I are getting our marriage license today.
As I carefully printed [...]

I feel the need to briefly set the mental scene for this post. It seems for the most part that the posts on this blog are generated from the subject matter which the various authors are feasting on at the time they write their posts. Someone asked if I wouldn’t write my next post on [...]

I’ve recently started reading a book by my great-grandfather. It is a biographical book about how the events in his life brought him to his rather liberal political ideas. As I’ve read the book, I’ve let out a few sighs at how little family history information the book includes. I have to keep reminding myself [...]

Some of the oldest existing vital records for Southern States research are marriage records. Laws and customs regarding marriage records and vital statistics for many of the states of the Mid-South region have roots in the Commonwealth of Virginia or North Carolina. Bordering areas of North Carolina and Virginia both influenced each other. West Virginia [...]

Generally in Mexican research, Catholic parish records are consulted first because people were more consistent in baptizing their children within a few months of the child’s birth than they were in registering their children’s births with the civil authorities. However, when doing research in big cities, plowing through the hundreds and even thousands of baptismal [...]

Beginning in 1907, the Roman Catholic Church worldwide required that a Catholic person’s marriage be reported to his or her place of baptism. The 1907 decree Ne Temere required that marriages be noted on one’s baptismal record. They are usually noted on the side of the baptism record. Compliance with this decree varied, especially in [...]