Name searches are at the center of almost every single search we do online for our ancestors. Whether we are using a giant site like Ancestry or a small local database, we want and expect to find our ancestors by the names they were known as. But, as any experienced genealogist will tell you, names seldom play by the rules.
Whether you are an avid family history researcher who is hoping to use DNA to improve your research and build on your family tree, or you just took a test out of passing curiosity, here are some things you should and shouldn’t do with your results.
Almost every tree contains inconsistencies and errors. And the bigger your family tree the more issues there may be. Luckily, modern technology makes it possible to scan your research for these errors in just a couple of clicks.
The term family tree is defined as “a diagram showing the relationships between people in several generations of a family.” Add your parents, grandparents and great grandparents and you’re well on your way to building your own tree. But, as we all know, family is an incredibly complex concept with biological, legal, social and emotional elements. And, for this reason, the question of who counts as family in a family tree is far from simple.
Summer is the season of travel and while we are wandering the world many of us are also planning a visit to a cemetery or two. If you’re going to try and find a burial site, no matter its age or location, you’ll want to take a few very important things into consideration before you head out.
As you dive deeper into your family history you will likely run across terminology that you have not seen before or that you may not fully understand. Even those of us who have made history a profession will sometimes run across terms that are no longer used or that have a specific application that’s unfamiliar. This guide explores confusing military terms from the Civil War and the American Revolution to help you with your genealogy research.
We all have those ancestors who make us want to pull our hair out. You know, the ones we just can’t find key pieces of information about – like a birth or death date? Locating a date of birth can be especially difficult because oftentimes only ages are listed on old records. And even on records that usually do list a birth date this detail is sometimes left blank because the informant didn’t have the needed information (this is common on death certificates). But finding an actual date of birth (rather than an estimated year) is important to your research. This article will go over a few common places to find birth dates and then jump into several sources that are often overlooked by researchers.
Genealogy research often has a domino effect. Locating one new piece of information can open new paths to explore and can knock down brick walls you have been pounding on for years. In this article I will discuss how a person’s date of death and/or last known location can help you reveal the cause when you don’t have a death certificate.
The online research site American Ancestors, from the New England Historic Genealogical Society (NEHGS), has just released the largest collection of authenticated Mayflower passenger genealogies ever online. This database is a digitized version of the Mayflower Families Fifth Generation Descendants, 1700-1880, a series of books created by the General Society of Mayflower Descendants and featuring more than a half a million names of individuals who are known to have descended from those who took part in the pivotal voyage.
If you are one of the millions of people who have an ancestor that lived in the Unites States in 1880 and had a physical or mental impairment or illness – or who was homeless, an orphan, an alcoholic, a prisoner, who was living in an institution or poor house, or who received government assistance – you’ll want to know about these often overlooked census schedules.