Genealogy Research Tips and Tricks

Offline Vital Records are Critical to Your Research, and Ordering Them is Easier Than You Think

If you’ve never taken the time to track down offline vital records about your ancestors you might be asking yourself two questions right now: “Vital Records?  What are those?” and “Offline? Why would I need a quick guide to finding Vital Records offline when it’s so easy to surf for everything online?” But you’ll soon discover that adding these offline records to your research is an integral step in understanding your ancestors’ lives and building a quality family tree.

13 Reasons You Can’t Find the Genealogy Information You’re Looking For

Searching for and locating records about our ancestors is seldom a simple process. Of course, we all have those easy to find individuals that seem to appear in every single record at just the right time — but many of us spend most of our time searching for those elusive members of our tree that appear to have avoided being recorded on purpose.

If you’ve hit a brick wall in your research, check our list of 13 common reasons why people fail to find the genealogy data they’re looking for. These are not the only reasons a person might hit a brick wall or miss information (some circumstances, like adoption, provide even greater challenges) but in the vast majority of cases one or more of these observations apply. If you feel that something on the list describes your research take the time to address it and you might find that you tear down your family history obstacle once and for all.

Ancestry Has Thousands of “Invisible” Records You Can’t Find With a Search

Many people are unaware of the fact that not all of Ancestry’s records show up in search. A surprising number of collections have not been indexed and are therefore virtually invisible to the everyday user of the site. These browse-only collections, as they are known, need to be purposely sought out if you want to take advantage of the records they contain. Some collections have been on Ancestry’s site for years and are still not searchable, while others are new collections that have not yet been indexed.

Here’s How to Find Tens of Thousands of Family History Books for Free

One of the most exciting things about doing family history research is moving beyond names and dates to begin exploring the stories of our ancestors’ lives. There are many ways to do this. Records like pension applications, wills and obituaries can provide details that allow us a special glimpse into the important events and personal relationships of our forebearers.

But there is one type of genealogy resource that often stands above the rest when it comes to providing unique insights. And this same resource also happens to be a wonderful place to locate names and dates, land ownership information, occupations and much more.

The Vast Majority of Genealogy Records Still Can’t Be Found Online: Here’s How to Locate Them

With billions of records now online, many of them free and open to all, is there really still an absolute need for offline research?

For our genealogical research to be considered thorough, does it have to be conducted offline, in an archive, courthouse, or library?

The short answer of course is “no” – depending on what we want to know.

But here’s the catch: we don’t know what we don’t know. In other words, if we haven’t visited a repository, how can we know what we’re missing? So, the long answer, tackled in this article, is a resounding “YES!” – offline research is a must. Maybe we won’t find the missing 90% of records proclaimed by the purists, but there’s no way the trip won’t be worth it.

Back Up Your Family Tree: Don’t Do Another Minute of Genealogy Research Until You Do This One Thing

As interest in family history research continues to grow more and more researchers are taking the time to educate themselves about genealogy best practices so they can grow an accurate family tree. Family historians are understanding the value of doing their own unique research, avoiding copying the trees of others, and taking more time to properly source their trees for the benefit of everyone. But a surprising number are not taking the time to do the most important thing they can do for their research.