Have you ever thought about publishing your family history research but didn’t know where to begin? Forgetting the technical challenges for a moment, how would you organize the material? What is the best way to present a book-length genealogy?
The answer is, emulate the award winners! Numerous genealogical societies give awards for excellent published family histories. [...]

Last week I found a great bit of information on my great-great grandfather in a book digitized by Google. He was featured in a book about poets from South Dakota (and I came across this book with a simple Google search!). When I looked at the book, I was pleased to find that there were [...]

I just read on Dick Eastman’s site that Walton County, Georgia’s Besse Cooper is the World’s Oldest Person at 115 years old. I was curious about Besse. Who was she? What led to her longevity, her ancestry, her lifestyle, occupation? What could I find out about her online? What an amazing life she’s led so [...]

I recently ordered a birth certificate for a client’s ancestor who was believed to be born in Tennessee. After the usual wait time I received a certified record of “no record found.” Before simply accepting that the record was a lost cause, I took a few steps to determine the search parameters that the Tennessee [...]

One of the most useful, but lesser known resources at Ancestry.com, is their vast collection of city directories.   City directories offer a small glimpse—a year-to-year census if you will—into your ancestor’s life.  I have used city directories to help me determine:

Where an ancestor is located in a census record
When an ancestor died
When an ancestor immigrated [...]

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 [...]

I learned a very valuable family history research principle years ago, and I’ve seen its application more and more as I gain experience in genealogical research. It is a powerful tool for breaking through some brick walls.
Look in neighboring jurisdictions.
Like ourselves, our ancestors did not neatly compartmentalize themselves into cities and counties. They might live [...]

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 [...]

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. [...]