Non-traditional family trees are not uncommon. Although many of us wish for a traditional family, divorce, death, out-of-wedlock births and other circumstances happen to many families. No matter how you feel about what happened or how you feel about the people involved in these events, they belong in your family tree. Your step family genealogyContinue reading “Non-Traditional Family Trees: Step Families on FamilySearch”
Category Archives: Tips
Finding Ancestors Overseas: Cynthia Borgman’s Death in China
As someone who began her simple life in a large, bilingual family–the child of Dutch immigrants to Iowa–Cynthia Clara Borgman’s adulthood might seem an easily predictable vision of a typical, early-nineteenth-century Midwestern life. It wasn’t. Cynthia traveled far and died young (in her 20s) in Amoy, China while serving as a missionary for the DutchContinue reading “Finding Ancestors Overseas: Cynthia Borgman’s Death in China”
Father’s Day DNA Sales, 2018
This Father’s Day, the following genealogy companies are offering Father’s Day DNA Sales (all units are $USD; shipping cost not included):
Protecting Your Privacy on GEDmatch
See also our blog post Protecting Your Privacy on Ancestry GEDmatch has been in the news a great deal lately. Last week, authorities in California announced the arrest of alleged serial burglar, rapist, and murderer known as the “Golden State Killer,” Joseph James DeAngelo, Jr. Officials on the case stated that investigators used GEDmatch toContinue reading “Protecting Your Privacy on GEDmatch”
Family History Lessons from Disney’s “Coco”
Spoiler Warning: The following post contains spoilers from the Disney movie Coco. If you have not watched the movie yet, please do yourself a favor and watch it before scrolling down and reading this post! I absolutely loved the movie Coco because it is all about family history. There are many things we can learnContinue reading “Family History Lessons from Disney’s “Coco””
Researching Your Civil War Ancestors, Part III: Finding Your Ancestor’s Military Unit Using Pension Payment Cards
As I pointed out in Part II, you can often find out which unit your ancestor served in by using the Civil War Soldiers Index. Sometimes, however, we need to conduct further research to verify things. One excellent way to pinpoint your ancestor’s unit is by searching for them in federal and state pension indexes.Continue reading “Researching Your Civil War Ancestors, Part III: Finding Your Ancestor’s Military Unit Using Pension Payment Cards”
What to do When You Hit a Brick Wall
Do you have a “brick wall” in your family tree? You’ve been able to trace most of your family lines pretty far back in time, but there is that one line that you just can’t figure out. You have an empty spot on your family tree. You are just itching to fill it in, butContinue reading “What to do When You Hit a Brick Wall”
Researching Civil War Ancestors, Part II: What Was Your Ancestor’s Military Unit?
This is Part II of a series on finding and researching your Civil War ancestors. See “Part I: Did Any of Your Ancestors Fight?” here. Once you have set aside ancestors of yours who are likely to have fought in the Civil War, the next step is to discover their military unit. When you haveContinue reading “Researching Civil War Ancestors, Part II: What Was Your Ancestor’s Military Unit?”
The Record Exists! Part II: Families, Collectors, and Everything Else
(This post is the second in a series about the different places you can find records. See Part I here.) In my last post in this series I discussed some of the more obvious and easy to find records that contain genealogical information. In this post we will dig a little bit deeper, looking atContinue reading “The Record Exists! Part II: Families, Collectors, and Everything Else”
Researching Civil War Ancestors, Part I: Did Any of Your Ancestors Fight?
(This post is the first in a multi-part series that will outline how to research your Civil War ancestors.) No war in US history caused more American deaths than the Civil War. Hardly a family survived it without being touched by it in a profound and painful way. I have a number of ancestors whoContinue reading “Researching Civil War Ancestors, Part I: Did Any of Your Ancestors Fight?”