My husband has a great-grandfather who fought in the Civil War and lived to tell about it (although barely). His name was Lewis Alpheus Mosey (1843-1925). A few years ago I found Lewis’ Civil War Pension Index Card and 1890 Special Veteran’s Census Schedule on ancestry.com. The census said that he had a “rifle wound …
More than two centuries after its inception an important effort is underway to preserve the pension records from the War of 1812. For the last several years, donations have been raised to digitize these records and make them free to the public. The Federation of Genealogical Societies has created the Preserve the Pensions page in conjunction with Fold3, Ancestry and the …
War of 1812 Pension Records: Preservation Effort and Free Access Read More »
Thank you to family history research site Crestleaf for contributing this guest post. Ahh, Valentine’s Day. Depending on your current relationship status, the season of courtly love can either conjure up warm and fuzzy feelings, or make you want to forget the day exists! But this lovey dovey day isn’t just for couples who want to …
Love is My Last Name: A Fun Look at Valentine’s Day Related Surnames Read More »
Thank you to Bob Vornlocker for this guest post. I’ve previously written several articles about searching using wildcards and my comments have continued to ring true for me. I’ve added hundreds of new records since last published here using wildcard and proximity searches. I even convinced Mocavo, one of my favorite genealogy websites, to add …
A few years ago I did an ancestry binder for an in-law branch of the family which shall remain nameless. I discovered the story of a genuine black sheep—George Washington Coomes, who was shot to death on September 5, 1896. George was born in McLean County, Kentucky, on January 16, 1861. He married Cordelia Martin …
Have you heard about the Genealogy Do-Over from Geneabloggers creator Thomas MacEntee? It’s creating quite a lot of buzz in the family history world right now, and for good reason. As the name implies, the Do-Over challenges genealogists to go back and completely redo and rethink their research in an effort to improve it. Sound crazy? It is, and …
Last Day to View the Free Genealogy Do-Over Webinar Read More »
As some of our regular readers may know, we get many questions each week about how to find free genealogy sites on the web. New family historians can get overwhelmed looking for research options, and end up only using sites like Ancestry to research their ancestors. And while Ancestry.com and other paid sites are certainly very valuable …
Family history research is full of terms that you may never have encountered before you began constructing your tree. Every genealogist, no matter how experienced, will find themselves pulling out the dictionary as they dig deeper into history. One of our favorite resources to draw from when encountering a word or phrase that we have not heard before is …
Genealogy Glossary: Confusing Research Terms and Their Meanings Read More »
Everyone thinks they want me to find a few—but perhaps that’s one of those things that sounds better in theory than it turns out to be in practice.
Most family historians are familiar with the idea of transcribing records. We do this as part of our own family research when we document a new source in our tree or carefully record the text of a family record for posterity. Many of us have also spent time transcribing for repositories, such as FamilySearch, who have managed to …
The Smithsonian Needs Your Help Transcribing Records Read More »