Jennifer Mattern Genealogy isn’t just about digging for facts. It’s about telling stories — our stories. Sometimes curiosity about those stories alone is enough to drive us into researching our family histories. But sometimes it’s more than that — something specific we wanted to learn about ourselves, a particular connection that drove our passion to know more, or maybe … Read more
Growing up, if you asked me what my ancestry was, I would have simply said “German and Irish.” My father’s side of the family was German. My grandfather on that side was a German immigrant after WWII, and my grandmother’s family came to New York from Germany a few generations earlier. My mother’s side of … Read more
This might be a quick and common sense tip for most folks who regularly work on family history research, but I was reminded of something today — you absolutely must back up your genealogy research. I learned this lesson the hard way when I was just a teenager. I started climbing my family tree when I was … Read more
I know most regular visitors to this blog come for the conversations about German dual citizenship. But that’s just a tiny part of why I launched this blog so many years ago. Climb Your Family Tree was meant to be a journal of sorts about my own family history research and what I found. But … Read more
Are you new to researching your family history? If so, you’ve probably been in this situation at least once: you found a family history research site, you ran what looked like a free ancestry search, and then you were told that the site found results for your ancestors. “Awesome!” you probably thought. But wait. Then … Read more
Family tree software is great. We can add a wealth of information about our ancestors, and it’s conveniently searchable and sortable. But every now and then I still like to see a printed family tree, especially when I’m working on a specific branch and I don’t want to be distracted by the endless supply of … Read more
It seems hard to believe now, but I started researching my family tree just about 19 years ago. I was a teenager. I honestly don’t know what prompted me to have an interest in my family history. But I do remember what that early phase was like. Today I’d like to share some of the … Read more
One of the most valuable forms I’ve come across in my research into my immigrant ancestors has been form SS-5, which is an application for a U.S. social security number. Here is what the SS-5 looks like using an example from one of my relatives (with personal information blurred out): More importantly, here is the … Read more
Every now and then family history research uncovers less-than-flattering information about our families. When that happens, we have to make a decision. Do we share that information with other family members? Or do we keep it to ourselves? You would think the answer would be obvious, but certain lines are easy to cross. For example, … Read more
Sometimes when conducting family history research, we can come across amazing coincidences, finding that we’re tied to others in ways we never would have expected. This happened to me and one particular colleague and friend. We realized years ago that the two of us (her from Pennsylvania and me originally from New York) had a … Read more