The Getting Started with Genealogy Book at Genealogy How To .com

Gary Minder of Poulsbo, WA  has created and offers for free incredibly useful spreadsheets for some of the most important genealogical data we will find  in our research. He requests a small donation, but the utility far exceeds any cost. His work can be found at http://www.censustools.com/ Gary says: Ever try entering extracted census data [...]

Read Full Post »

The following are 10 excellent sites for exploring an African-American heritage: 1. AfriGeneas 2. The USF Africana Heritage Project This all-volunteer research project and Web site sponsored by the Africana Studies department at the University of South Florida works to discover records that document the names of slaves, freedpersons and their descendants, and share them [...]

Read Full Post »

One can better establish birth dates by knowing when the Census was actually taken. That date is nearly impossible to determine because it is generally not recorded. But one can get closer to the actual birth date by knowing the instructions given to the Enumerators. U.S. Census enumerators were instructed to take down the names [...]

Read Full Post »

A little known government genealogy service lets family history leap off the page. It is the U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services at www.Immigrationdirect.com. The records include naturalization files, visa applications and citizenship tests, and may reveal family secrets and mysteries, said Marian Smith, the agency’s historian. “The details of the story have been told over [...]

Read Full Post »

When one performs research for ancestors and the lives they lived in the past, it is worth consideration to include historical events and matters as they stood at a particular point in time. I will offer a few examples from my own efforts only to suggest a train of thought. My father joined the Army [...]

Read Full Post »

If you have any connection with your ancestors to New England, I highly recommend you join the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS). The value of this organization can not be overstated. They are a gold mine to researchers! Now, the NEHGS has created an alliance with Footnote.com. Footnote has a free search capability, but [...]

Read Full Post »

The perfect holiday gift for someone generally hard to buy for might be a copy of the book Getting Started in Genealogy, or, How To Leave a Legacy and Have Fun Doing So. These candidates might possess one or more of these characteristics: • Seriously in need of a hobby; • Has much of their life [...]

Read Full Post »