Whether you aren’t sure where to start researching your family tree or you’ve hit a dead-end, there’s one reliable option you can always turn to: your local library. For this week’s genealogy prompt, take some time to explore what family history resources your local library provides. They’re generally all free, and they can come with … Read more
Sometimes visiting your ancestors’ hometowns isn’t enough to satisfy your curiosity. If you’re looking for more information than what you’ve uncovered on your own, consider taking an organized ancestry tour. What are these? Let’s explore ancestry tours and some of the options available to you. What is an Ancestry Tour? An ancestry tour is any … Read more
Previously we talked about taking family history day trips, and how they can be good family-friendly events. But what if you’re still looking for ideas? Here’s a simple one you can do no matter where you live: visit a cemetery. Why visit a cemetery? Here are two good reasons, whether or not your ancestors are … Read more
Browsing public family trees online can be exciting. You might suddenly come across a treasure trove of information about one of your ancestors — their parents’ names, other children, or even further generations back. But that doesn’t mean making your own working tree public is a good idea. In fact, it’s much wiser to keep … 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
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
Just a quick announcement. Ancestry is running a limited time promotion through the weekend (ending at midnight, September 1, 2014) with free access to over a billion new global records. As an added perk, you don’t need to enter a credit card to access these records during this promotion (though that’s a requirement for the standard … Read more
Not long ago I showed someone my family tree. It’s a pretty decent size at around 2000 people, although I’m sure some of you have far bigger ones. This person asked me a very good question. They wanted to know how I could find anything in there. It just looked like one big jumbled mess … Read more
One of the best family history research tools on the Web also has the potential to cause the biggest headaches — other family trees. The great thing about being able to browse others’ family trees is that some distant relative is probably researching some branch of your tree. Those people may have access to information … Read more
Family history research today can be much easier for amateurs and professionals like, especially when starting to work on a new family tree. One tool we now have that wasn’t available in the not-so-near past is the social network. You might think of social networking as chatting with your friends online using Facebook. But social … Read more