A Lucrative, Free, and Easy Research Tool You May Not Know About
You may have tried Googling your ancestors before, but depending on how you did it, got no results. Did you…
How to Find Obituaries for Female Ancestors That Are Hiding in Plain Sight
Have you ever searched for an obituary for a female ancestor but got zero results? It is disappointing to come…
Don’t Abandon Printed Photos Quite Yet!
You can take as many pictures as you want with a smartphone. One of my friends has over 100,000 from…
A Resource You Can’t Afford to Underestimate
The local historical society in your ancestors’ hometown can be a treasure trove. For hundreds of years, historical societies have…
The Key to Sharing Family History Discoveries with Others
Sharing family stories can be challenging. Historians love the details—context, dates, people involved, discovery stories. But if you aren’t careful,…
Identifying the Unidentifiable: How You Can Identify Family Members in Unlabeled Photographs
It is exciting and excruciating at the same time: discovering that unmarked family photograph in the attic. Nothing is more…
5 Things Obituaries Could Reveal About Your Ancestry
5 Things Obituaries Could Reveal About Your Ancestry—A genealogy goldmine. Obituaries going back centuries can reveal intimate details about your ancestors!
Kids Taking the Battlefield: Did Your Underage Ancestors Serve in the Civil War?
About 700,000 children under 18 fought in the Civil War: 20% of all soldiers. Though difficult to specify, an estimated 100,000 soldiers were under 15. Did your great-great-grandfather enlist in the Civil War? Did a great-great-great-granduncle run away and join the American Revolutionary War in 1775? Some American children even fought in WWI and WWII. There are ways to find out if your ancestors fought in the U.S. Military or during the Civil War even if underage.
Mental Health | Stories | Tips
Mental Illness: A Crucial Part of Everybody’s Ancestry Journey
I have found clues that my ancestors might have suffered from mental illnesses. Take this newspaper clipping, for example. Mental illness almost certainly affected your ancestors. But they might be hard to detect. People did not know how to identify mental illnesses until recently. So, records are not always accurate. Mental illness almost certainly affected your ancestors. But they might be hard to detect. Why is the history of mental illness such an important topic? Why should we pay special attention to mental illness in genealogy research?
An Ancestral Hunt: “Raised by Her Grandmother”
“Angelita was raised by her grandmother, Genara Lujan, in Jaconita, NM.” This sentence kicked off a two-hour genealogical hunt to find Angelita’s parents. She was my close friend’s great-grandmother. Angelita’s obituary only mentioned her grandmother, but no parents.