Genealogy Research Tips and Tricks

Why Getting to Know an Ancestor’s Location Can Be a Research Game Changer

As family history researchers we often get caught up exploring the people in our family tree and we forget to take into consideration the impact locations had on these people’s lives. But, often, location research can reveal as much or more about an ancestor as the vital records you’ve likely already collected.

Online Genealogy Records Can Disappear: Simple Ways to Protect Your Research

These days, millions of people have family trees online, with facts and sources gathered from the many online databases that are available. But, be aware, some of these sources could just disappear. No warning, just gone – because online record collections are not guaranteed to stay online, or publicly accessible, forever.

3 Signs You Should Scrap Your Family Tree and Start from Scratch

Often, when we first begin our research, we really don’t know what we’re doing and make a lot of mistakes. We forget to verify connections between generations, we don’t always add sources, we copy from other people’s trees… And then, somewhere down the line, we aren’t exactly sure what’s fact and what’s fiction anymore. Here are 3 signs it’s time to start over.

3 Quick FamilySearch Tricks to Help You Find Elusive Ancestors

While most people find FamilySearch’s site pretty intuitive, there are a few buried elements that many overlook – ones that can have a huge impact on your research. It only takes a minute to try them out. Go see how they can help your research today!

This Free Web Clipper Makes Adding New Records to Your Family Tree an Easy Task

Family History Daily recently reviewed the free family tree site RootsFinder, because its modern design and robust functionality makes it a great choice for anyone in the market for a new place to store their research. One of the features of RootsFinder that really stands out is its Web Clipper, an extension that works with your browser to extract genealogical records from other websites and copy them to your RootsFinder family tree. This extension is free and is one of the most useful tools you will find online for genealogical research.

Are You Making the Direct-Line Mistake in Your Family Tree?

One of the most common research mistakes that family historians make when building their tree (especially for the first time) is also one of the most limiting and potentially detrimental. We like to call it the Direct-Line Mistake, and its affect on your research is pretty huge.

Another Person’s Family Tree is Not a Valid Source

Several popular genealogy research sites have made it far too easy to find, skim and add another person’s family tree data to our own – citing only the tree as a source. But this practice can cause inaccurate trees and other major problems for researchers.